


happily ever after has bite marks in it

by voxofthevoid



Series: in this story, you have claws [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Explicit Sexual Content, Intercrural Sex, Just Weird Werewolf Anatomy, Knotting, Light Angst, Light Dom/sub, M/M, No Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Peggy Carter as Captain America, Reunions, Rimming, Standard Winter Solider Warnings, Touch-Starved Bucky Barnes, Werewolf Steve Rogers, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-10-11 22:22:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17455376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxofthevoid/pseuds/voxofthevoid
Summary: Bucky Barnes is just fine.He lives by himself in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, hasn’t killed anyone for the better part of a year, remembers nearly all of his life except the parts he spent in a glorified freezer, and has nightmares only three nights out of five. It’s as good as it gets.And then he meets a mutant wolf with his dead best friend’s eyes.In which Bucky is aggressively okay with his self-imposed exile from society, and Steve is a werewolf who’s nothing like the Brooklyn boy Bucky still dreams of.





	1. we are never alone, but we are free (the earth has a pulse that we check with our bare feet)

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title from [ Caitlyn Siehl’s “In the Land of the Living.”](http://alonesomes.tumblr.com/post/68736974070/in-the-world-where-we-are-together-the-rivers)
> 
> The “Standard Winter Soldier Warnings” tag includes references to suicidal ideation and accidental self-harm. Avoid reading if those are triggering to you and feel free to ask me for any clarifications in the comments or on tumblr. The worst of it is in this chapter.

_In this story, you have claws._  
_In this story, happily ever after has bite marks in it._  
_In this story, you are free and terrifying._  
_In this story, you get away._  
_In this story, you bleed._  
_In this story, you survive._

\- Caitlyn Siehl, “In This Story”

 

 

The eyes never disappear.

There’s a part of Bucky that tries to call it paranoia, but that part is the unholy lovechild of wishing the last seven odd decades never happened and a passing desperation to fit into the vague shape of a _person_ as defined by whatever remains of that stupid kid from the 40s. Even on his best days, Bucky ignores that part. On his worst, well – he has greater concerns then, like trying not to find the nearest cliff and fling himself over.

Wouldn’t kill him anyway. He should fucking know.

So it’s not paranoia, and the feeling of being watched sits under his skin like sandpaper. It’s a familiar feeling, one he remembers quite well from those seventy years he wants to curse into nonexistence, but it’s different in ways that he can’t pinpoint because it’s something that defies words and categorization, instead flitting over the edges of sheer instinct.

His first suspects would be – were – Fury or even whatever remains of Hydra, but aside from Romanoff, neither party has anyone who could consistently evade Bucky while continuing to watch him, and she’s somewhere in Europe with her birdman. There’s also the small detail that Hydra would try to contain or kill him, not camp out in a forest in buttfuck nowhere and just watch. Bucky’s even made it easy for them, moving to this sad shack miles away from proper civilization. Granted, it’s as much of a baited trap as he can make it without expending too much thought and energy into it, but that’s never stopped Hydra. It was almost disappointing, those first few months where Bucky spent every waking moment and also every second of restless sleep waiting for a STRIKE team – assuming that Hydra had enough half-decent agents left to put one of those together – to break down a wall or at least the front door.

Then again, Pierce is dead with a pretty bullet hole in his skull, and Carter and her costumed cohorts are hunting down what’s left of Hydra with _extreme prejudice_ , so it makes sense that they have greater priorities than the Winter Soldier, especially one that no longer responds to triggers.

Bucky still doesn’t understand that, was as confused as Rumlow who flung the words at Bucky and watched in slow-dawning horror as they slid off his mind like oil on water, but that didn’t stop him from tearing the fucker into pieces or the subdued elation that bubbles up whenever he thinks of that moment.

Logically, that leaves no one who could stalk Bucky for over a year and get away with it, but no amount of well-reasoned justification can counter the way his hair stands on end when he takes so much as a step out of the cabin. It probes at some deep, animal part of him, one well beyond the instincts cultivated by a brief stint at war and then decades as Hydra’s pet assassin. That doesn’t make it any less unsettling, only more confusing.

It all goes back to that night.

But Bucky doesn’t _remember_ that night. He remembers being sent to kill something, his mind blank and razor-sharp, and he remembers waking up propped against a tree with a name echoing eerily in his skull alongside a thousand scattered memories.

They’re less scattered now and he wears his name gladly, if wistfully, but that night remains an empty stretch of time across the landscape of his mind.

He was told to kill something. Pierce activated him, gave the usual fascist spiel that must have been wasted on a brainwashed piece of work fresh out of cryo. That’s where his memory stutters. Whatever happened, it left Bucky alive and more whole than he’s been since Austria and fucking Zola, with nothing to show for that miracle except a scar on his shoulder shaped like a crescent. It’s thin and silver and aches once every fortnight, but the throb of it is almost comforting, like the vague memories he has of being held against his mother’s chest or being wrapped in the arms of a boy with golden hair and eyes like the sky.

He knows the boy’s name, but he shies away from it, even in his own head.

Point is – he can’t escape the eyes on him, can’t find whoever they belong to, can’t rip them out to earn himself some peace, so he learns to live with it. He’s not scared, is only wary because he doesn’t know not to be, and for the love of the God he lost faith in, he can’t explain why it all makes that primal part of him stir but doesn’t make it bristle or recoil in fear. Even the unease is at the surface-level, made all the more worse because the lack of fear just doesn’t seem right.

There’s shit he can do about it, except maybe hide in the cabin for the rest of his who-knows-how-long life, but even if Fury, Romanoff, and Carter weren’t conspiring to make that impossible, Bucky’s own head would. As it is, he’s just glad he’s got miles of uninhabited forest to run amok in when the walls start closing in.

It’s funny how comfortable he is in the forest. James Buchanan Barnes was a city boy through and through. The Winter Solider went where he was told, did as ordered, and always went to sleep in a glorified icebox.

Bucky as he is, a Frankenstein monster made of a mishmash of memories and experiences, feels at home among trees that swallow the sunlight and wolves whose howls shake the forest on moonlit nights.

That night was spent in a forest too. Sometimes, he wonders if it matters, but he doesn’t wonder too long.

 

* * *

 

The sudden absence of it is so jarring that he doesn’t register it at first, not really, knowing only that something’s wrong.

It takes Bucky a while to figure out that something’s finally _right_ , or supposed to be, and that it doesn’t make him feel as good as he half-heartedly imagined it would.

They’re gone, the eyes on him. Bucky steps out of his cabin for an early morning walk slash perimeter check, and that curious animal inside of him stays quiet. He knows something’s changed and doesn’t understand what until he’s halfway through his usual route.

Then he sees the wolf.

His first impression is that it’s huge. And it is, gigantic even when sprawled on its side. The color is no less unnatural, a warm, bright gold that can’t even be called tawny. Bucky’s caught glimpses of wolves around, seen flashes grey and brown and the occasional black, but this – this is something else. He’s pretty sure that wolves aren’t supposed to come in this color or this size.

Then its eyes flash open, and Bucky’s staring at the sky.

 

* * *

 

It’s stupid.

That long-dead boy from Brooklyn had golden hair and pretty blue eyes, but he was tiny and sickly; a spitfire from his first breath, with more rage than his spindly limbs could contain.

This a fucking wolf, big enough to give Bucky pause and try to remember if Hydra experimented on animals, but his Swiss cheese brain clearly doesn’t give a fuck.

The name Bucky’s been running from is suddenly ringing in his head, and it’s only sheer shock that stops it from leaving his mouth.

His memory is a liar – and that ain’t fucking news, but it hits harder now than it did when he looked at Natalia Romanoff and saw the child he trained and the woman he shot layered on top of one another like a blood-stained kaleidoscope. Doesn’t make sense that it’s harder to look into some animal’s eyes and violently drown in memories of the exact shade of Steve Rogers’ eyes.

Not the blue of the sky, though that’s close as you get to putting words to it. The reality of it is brighter, deeper, and Bucky remembers – can’t help but remember – the way those eyes would turn hot and molten and hard and icy and a million things in between, remembers how it felt to be looked at by a boy like that. They throw around fancy names these days for all shades of all colors under the sun and then some, but Bucky can look at this and only think _Steve_.

His chest constricts, breath burning, and that’s familiar too, only in all the wrong ways. Steve Rogers always stole the breath right out of Bucky’s lungs, but he was real then, flesh and blood, smart mouth and clever hands, incandescently alive.

Now, he’s a memory half swallowed by a mind that knows more of death than it ever did of love.

The wolf whines, high and mournful, and Bucky jolts like lightning raced up his spine.

He smells the blood before he sees it, his senses snapping back to reality. The wolf didn’t lunge for his throat while he was off in his own head, and the reason is clear once he looks over it properly. There’s a large gash along its side, the fur at the sides red with blood that’s both fresh and dried. It’s an ugly wound, deep and jagged, bits of flesh protruding at the sides. The wolf doesn’t make another sound, but its breathing is heavy and labored. Bucky doesn’t look at its eyes again, but he imagines them clouded with pain and has to push the image away before his helpful brain turns that ferocious snout into a pale, sharp face.

He could just leave. He’s got no medical know-how except basic first aid and the limits of his enhanced physiology. He sure as hell isn’t equipped to deal with a giant injured wolf who’ll probably bite his head off is he tries to help. It’s not like the damn thing will be able to tell that Bucky’s not trying to hurt it. Injured animals are dangerous. Humans too. He’d know.

He makes the mistake of looking at its eyes again, can’t help it even when he knows it’s idiotic. The effect is no less intense, but he limits it to a contained shudder and slams a wall into the memories that threaten to erupt. Not the fucking time. It’ll never be the fucking time.

The wolf’s eyes follow him as he crouches, slow and careful, but it doesn’t even growl. There’s intelligence in its gaze and less pain than expected, or maybe Bucky’s just shit at reading animals.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, voice a low croon that he hopes to high hell is soothing. “You don’t look so hot.”

The wolf blinks. _No shit_ , it might say except it’s an animal and doesn’t understand shit except that some weird-smelling guy is trying to cozy up to it while it’s bleeding to death.

“I’m gonna have to sedate you, aren’t I?” Bucky says, lips curling as he realizes that he’s already made up his mind. “I want to help you, buddy, but I’d like to do it without losing a limb. Might just grow back.” He waggles his metal fingers. “They did a lot of shit after they got this on me. But let’s not take the risk.”

The wolf blinks again. Bucky’s reminded uncomfortably of how dry humor twisted the contours of Steve’s face.

 

* * *

 

There’s morphine in his cabin, part of the mini hospital he crammed into the cabin in a fit of paranoia. It’s come in handy, though mostly for self-sustained damage than anything other people did him. It’s just that Hydra’s tendency to leave his injuries unattended unless they were life threatening, concerned the arm, or affected his mission has left him with the need to take care of even minor scrapes with a level of care that he used to reserve for–

Bucky nips that thought in the bud, resigned and infuriated in equal parts by how a combination of fucking colors on a fucking _animal_ opened the goddamned floodgates he was so careful to keep shut.

It takes him ten minutes to run to the cabin and back to the wolf, supersoldier speed used without reserve in fear that the wolf will somehow vanish by the time he returns. It’s unlikely, he knows, but if life has taught him anything, it’s that world is strange, senseless, and deeply fucked up.

But it’s there, blending oddly well into the greens and browns of the forest despite its size and blinding color. Bucky knows its watching him from the moment he’s visible, but he takes a moment – pretending he’s cataloguing its injuries and thinking up a plan of attack – before he meets its eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says plainly, readying himself. It can’t understand him, but he continues anyway. “I promise I won’t hurt you. But I gotta do this.”

He lunges.

It’s strange how the wolf doesn’t put up much of a fight. It twitches when he moves, even makes a low, rumbling sound at Bucky’s sudden proximity and the harsh sting of the needle, but by the time he has empted the syringe and leaps back, it’s quiet and still. It’s eyes are still open, still on Bucky, and he meets them squarely until, between one breath and the next, they close.

The whole thing takes less than two minutes.

Bucky looks at the syringe.

“I used too much, didn’t I?”

But the wolf’s still breathing, deep and heavy, and it doesn’t so much as twitch when Bucky creeps closer. He didn’t notice in his mad dash to sedate the thing without losing a chunk of flesh, but now, he has no choice but to see how fucking huge it is. It’s like someone took a normal wolf and gave it the supersoldier serum.

Now there’s a thought.

It’s also one that feels entirely plausible the longer Bucky stand there and looks at the sheer mass of the thing.

His attention catches on its bloodied hide, and he mentally smacks himself and moves to the small bag he took from his cabin, stuffed with the medical supplies he thought he’d need and his tablet.

This place really shouldn’t get any kind of cell reception or internet data, but Carter gave it to him, citing a favor Anthony “I am Iron Man” Stark owed her, and Bucky found it easier to just take the damn thing and get the fuck out of dodge rather than stay to tease out the threads of guilt and obligation and who-knows-what-else that made up Carter’s feelings towards him. She’s an eerie mix of soldier and spy, and it catches him off guard in ways he doesn’t like.

When he feels like admitting it to himself, Bucky acknowledges that he’s just unnerved by how they’re practically the same age and how she came so close to saving him from Zola’s tender ministrations. He’s pretty sure the same lies at the root of her issues with him. He just doesn’t want to touch either bundle with a ten foot pole.

She didn’t save him; maybe he was never meant to be saved, never meant to go back to Brooklyn and his ma and that shitty apartment he shared with the only person he’s ever called home.

“Fuck,” he breathes, forcing the fingers of his flesh hand to loosen around the tablet before he crushes it. All that matters is that it works, and that it’s safe, not because of Carter's promise but because Bucky took apart the whole thing in all ways possible and gleefully abused each iota of his technical skills to make sure it’s damn well secure.

Then he settles down a respectful distance from the sleeping wolf and opens YouTube.

 

* * *

 

In the end, it’s a mixture of videos and helpful blogs that help him shave the fur, cleanse the wound, and stitch it up. Bucky wants to say it’s not all that different from patching himself up after slicing his leg open on one of his own knives one particularly bad night, but it’s a fucking gigantic wolf he’s dealing with so he doesn’t really bother lying to himself.

It’s weird as all hell.

He feels oddly satisfied once he’s done, pleased that the bleeding has stopped. It also looks like even the faintest strain would rip the sutures apart, but there’s not much he can do about that. At least the wolf is sleeping for now. Maybe, if he keeps some food within easy reach, it’ll stay there rather than try to leave and hurt itself in the process.

He runs slower this time, glad to have something to do other than fret over an unconscious wolf. He tries to let his mind go blank like he usually does, but that proves about as impossible as forming any concrete thoughts. His head flits from image to image, and Bucky chews his lips raw at the mental parade of gold and blue.

When he returns with a big slab of frozen meat, the wolf doesn’t seem to have moved. Bucky’s still careful as he sets the meat within easy reach of its jaws. He leaps back when black nostrils flare, but there’s no movement other than that. He inches back, slowly setting down his mixing bowl and filling it with water. He’s not thrilled at the thought of making the long trek back to civilization for another bowl, but the wolf needs it more than he does and damn if he’s using it afterward. Hydra might have handled him with all the delicacy of a wrecking ball, but Bucky’s got standards dammit.

He’s aware that he’s done all that he can short of hauling the wolf to properly equipped authorities. But first of all, the damn thing is too big for even Bucky’s serum-enhanced strength to handle, and secondly, his sympathy for some animal he’s met is not enough to override the very valid concerns that make him strive to keep his location and existence as much of a secret as possible.

But he doesn’t leave.

The tree’s not the most comfortable perch but he’s honestly had worse. What’s important is that it’ll let him keep a close eye on the wolf from a safe distance. He settles in as much as he can and opens the kindle he brought along because he didn’t quite manage to fool himself into thinking he would just leave the animal be. The overly convoluted story about two aliens and a human navigating a relationship while running from space pirates does a decent enough job of keeping him occupied.

 

* * *

 

It’s well past afternoon when the wolf stirs.

It comes to with a trembling sigh, big blue eyes slitting open. There doesn’t seem to be any lingering confusion from the drugs, and its gaze doesn’t so much as linger on the food and water before unerringly finding Bucky on his tree. It feels cowardly to look away so Bucky doesn’t, meeting those thrice-damned eyes head on even when they make his ribs feel two sizes too small. The big lug blinks, puffing air in a way that would pass as a snort on a person, and finally turns its attention to the meat like a normal carnivore.

Bucky’s relieved when it doesn’t tear its stitches while eating and only grimaces a little when it laps at the water from the bowl.

Honestly, it’s a little suspicious how well everything’s turning out, especially considering how he’s the farthest thing from a veterinarian. Hell, he’s not even your garden variety animal enthusiast. But if he’s starting to suspect random injured wildlife of ulterior motives, then he figures that’s paranoia well past reasonable provocation, so he shuts down that line of thought and lets himself be relieved that the wolf will live to see another day.

Bucky still doesn’t leave, remaining on his tree, alien threesome forgotten in favor of staring at the wolf. It stares back languidly, and Bucky’s half-convinced that it’s still a bit drugged. The hell does he know though. Maybe this is standard lone wolf behavior.

He doesn’t think so, not really, but he doesn’t linger on it.

He stays till the sun’s down and only faint moonlight trickles between the trees. It was a full moon recently, he remembers. There are times when this forest feels brighter at night than during the day.

“Don’t die,” he tells the animal, feeling foolish but not enough to stop. “Would be too much to hope you’ll stay here till tomorrow. S’fine. I can track you. Seriously though. Don’t fucking die.”

He keeps it in his sight until the trees obstruct his view, but it takes a long time for him to shed the weight of its gaze.

It feels familiar.

Bucky’s dreams that night are restless; dark, lunging shapes and flashes of gold.

 

* * *

 

He sleeps in, partly because it was almost dawn by the time his sleep deepened into something deserving of the name and partly because he fucking can. Even then, it’s the persistent rumble of his stomach that prompts him to roll out of bed at noon, cursing supersoldier metabolism not for the first time. He amuses himself with the thoughts of Carter – graceful and elegant even when drenched in the blood of her enemies – demolishing a meal that could feed five people. It pulls a smile out of him, though the niggling sense that she’d make even that seem refined never fades. Bucky doesn’t manage anything of the sort, attacking his steaks with little more poise than yesterday’s wolf.

To his credit, he does put up a token effort to talk himself out of searching for it. The chances of it being where he left it are slim, and even that allowance is for the possibility that it’s dead. But he’s tracked more elusive prey through worse terrain for far less pleasant purposes.

He dreamed of Steve last night; not a memory, just a dream. He was there when Bucky came out of cryo, stroking his hair and telling him he was safe. His smile was kind in a way the real Steve never managed. All his kindness was in his hands, his eyes; his mouth was always harsh lines and bitten words.

It’s not the first dream Bucky has had of Steve since his memories returned. It won’t be the last. But it is the first he’s allowed himself to dwell on once the last vestiges of sleep left and the reality where Steve was a ghost – precious but no less dead for it – reasserted itself.

He can’t even escape the name anymore, like thinking it once gave his head free rein to languish in a thousand old regrets.

He blames the wolf, its damn gold and blue.

He’s still gonna go look for it because he’s an idiot like that. He arms himself with a few knives, just in case, and grabs the medkit he prepared yesterday. He makes it one step past the front door and almost keels over from a heart attack.

The wolf lifts its head from where it’s lying across Bucky’s porch like an oversized rug. Its tail starts wagging.

 

* * *

 

“What the fuck?” he asks his door, staring blankly at the wood. The medkit is on the floor and there are knives in both his hands. He doesn’t recall doing either, but he’s used to weapons materializing in his hands when he’s startled. There are many reasons he’s not fit for public.

Still. What the fuck.

He slides one knife back into its sheath and uses his left arm to edge the door open. The wall of gold on the other side is not a surprise, but a little jolt goes through him anyway.

“What the fuck?” he asks again, this time at the wolf casually lounging at his doorstep. The damn thing lets out a sound that can only be called a whine, too shrill and pitiful to be coming from a creature so big.

And Bucky’s an idiot with a death wish so he opens the door wider. Sure, there’s a knife in his flesh hand and his left is a weapon all on its own, but that doesn’t make it any less stupid. It’d serve him well if the wolf leapt for his throat but of course, it doesn’t.

It wags its tail like an overgrown puppy and gently nudges the dead deer bleeding into Bucky’s porch. Its eyes are big and blue and guileless as it looks at Bucky like it wants a pat on the head and be told it’s a good doggo for dragging a freshly killed deer onto his porch.

Again, _what the fuck_.

 

* * *

 

Bucky goes back to bed.

The wolf doesn’t try break down Bucky’s door to get to him, but it also seems to have no plans of going anywhere any time soon, so after fifteen long minutes of a staring contest that thoroughly kills the few fucks Bucky has left for the day, he decides this is Future Bucky’s problem and stalks off to bed. A knife ends up embedded on the wall in the process, joining its many, many sisters. He doesn’t even bother stripping or disarming before collapsing face first on the lumpy mattress and waiting – praying, even – for sleep to take him.

And because he wants it so damn much, of course it doesn’t happen.

He still stays in bed for a good two hours because Bucky Barnes has never not been a stubborn son of a bitch, and he spends every second of those hours determinedly Not Thinking of the fucking animal parked out on the porch.

He also Does Not Think of how the gash he stitched up yesterday, which was deep and near fatal and should not have healed enough to let the damn wolf lope about and hunt deer.

Ah fuck.

He stalks right back to the door and flings it open, unsurprised and deeply unamused to find the wolf draped at his feet. One more step and he’d step on it. Bucky shuffles back automatically, some sensible part of him piping up about not losing half a leg, but even as he does it, he knows it’s pointless because the damn thing just whines again, like it’s mortally wounded that Bucky did not instantly and joyfully accept its sacred offering of deer carcass.

“Wolf,” Bucky enunciates slowly, taking a second to appreciate the fact that he’s actually, properly talking to an animal because _this is his life now_. “Why are you here, what are you doing, and why the fuck is there a dead deer on my porch?”

The wolf cocks its head. It doesn’t wag its tail again, but Bucky somehow gets the sense that it’s a near thing. It nudges the deer, which is also huge but in a normal, big animal way, not the mutant mess the wolf seems to be, and manages to move the carcass an inch towards Bucky.

“No,” he says flatly. “What. No.”

Blue eyes seem to fucking glimmer.

“I don’t need more reasons to question reality,” Bucky tells the wolf, and really, that right there is his life in a nutshell.

Then he sees the gash – or what’s left of it. It was a life threatening wound yesterday and now, all that remains is a patch of furless skin and a thin pink scar at least two inches shorter than the length of the wound.

Bucky just…gives up.

He does go back inside, door open this time because at this point, it would be refreshingly logical for the wolf to try and take a bite out of him. It doesn’t, naturally, and when Bucky checks the date on his tablet, he’s reassured that it really has been just nineteen hours since he left the wolf in the forest. He hasn’t accidentally slept for two weeks or whatever, and the wolf sure as fuck should _not_ be anywhere near healed.

It’s there when he goes back but by that point, he doesn’t expect anything else.

“So. Hydra?”

The wolf growls. The sound makes Bucky’s hair stand on end and his gut tighten, fear twisting his body without quite touching his mind.

“Yeah, pal,” he says quietly. “Me too.”

 

* * *

 

He briefly entertains the idea that the wolf is actually a dog, maybe a slightly malformed golden retriever, that looks like it does because of whatever Hydra did. It sure acts the part.

But no, it’s definitely a wolf, just an unnatural one, not just in body but in mind. It’s clear pretty soon that it understands Bucky perfectly well and is one canny motherfucker on top of it.

It follows him everywhere except the bathroom, and he’s mostly convinced that’s only because it knows the bathroom is too small to fit its bulk. Bucky tries, more than a dozen times, to lose it in the forest. Not even the combination of Winter Solider training and his strange new affinity for the forest is enough for him to successfully evade the fucker. And after the third time, Bucky’s certain that even if he does, the wolf will just go back to his cabin and wait for him there. He still keeps trying, but no amount of self-delusion can save him from the truth that after a point, it’s less escape and more exercise. The wolf keeps up with him, snapping its huge jaws at his feet with no intention of crunching down and tackling him so he’s pinned under its ridiculous size for the span of a breath before it leaps off.

It’s fun. It’s a challenge, one that doesn’t trip up anything in his head the way training with Carter or Romanoff might. Because no matter how he frames it, it’s hard to draw parallels between what Hydra had him do and roughhousing with an overgrown hybrid wolf with a weird attachment to Bucky and an unfortunate tendency to try and feed him.

It sulks each time Bucky rejects the animals it drags to his door, like it’s offended that he’d choose frozen meat over fresh kills. It sulks even worse when Bucky firmly closes the door on its face when it tries to wriggle into his bedroom at night. They both know that it could break down the door, even the wall, if it really wants, but it never does.

Bucky doesn’t know what to do about any of this. It’s almost like having a pet except for how it’s nothing like that.

It’s male. He doesn’t name it, doesn’t call it anything but ‘Wolf’ – or ‘Mutt’ on his less charitable days.

None of that stops him from looking at those damn blue eyes and thinking _Steve_.

 

* * *

 

A month in, and he’s used to it.

His new normal becomes soft whines at his bedroom door in the morning, long runs that leave him breathing hard and grinning, warm fur at his back while takes an evening nap in a clearing, and the terrifyingly heady sense of companionship.

Bucky can’t claim he understands it, doesn’t even really try. Maybe he’s too afraid that if he thinks too much, pokes too much, this new and fragile reality will shatter, and it’ll be just him and his tablet in the middle of nowhere.

He doesn’t even remember when that thought became as unpleasant as it is.

And then the wolf disappears.

He wakes up one morning to eerie silence that takes a moment to resolve itself into the conspicuous absence of another body in the cabin. By the time he’s out of bed and half-dressed on the porch, it’s clear that there’s no trace of the wolf in the cabin or anywhere close by. There are clear signs of its presence last night – the rug in front of the fireplace is rumpled and littered with long strands of golden fur. The bowl of water Bucky leaves out for St – the wolf every night is nearly empty.

It’s almost like it woke up in the morning and, instead of coming to snuffle at Bucky’s door until he woke, it just…left. The front door is slightly ajar; Bucky hasn’t bothered locking it at night since the wolf came.

Bucky forces down his unease. It’s not like he and the wolf were inseparable until then; he never managed to lose it on purpose, but there have been plenty of times when it vanished for hours and returned with a heaving chest and blood on its jaws. It still often dragged its kills to Bucky, only to huff and puff and help itself when Bucky firmly declined the offerings.

It’s just that this is the first time in nearly a month that he hasn’t woken to the wolf. It’s a break in routine. He’ll adjust.

But when the sun’s heading back to the horizon and the wolf still doesn’t show, Bucky stops trying to pretend that he’s not concerned and leaves the cabin in search of it. He’s been jittery all day and part of it’s the missing wolf, but there’s something else too – a quality to the air that sits heavy under his skin. It’s not the first time it’s happened since he came here. The forest gets like this sometimes, growing dark and quiet in a way that can’t be seen or heard, just felt. It’s not just him; the animals act weird too. The birds are too silent, the wolves too fucking loud. Bucky freaked out the first time, spent hours prowling his porch until the howling began. Then he went inside and spent the night with his headphones blaring and knives clutched in his hands.

Now, he just wonders if his wolf was among those that howled its throat raw on nights like this. He knows what’s coming, knows it’s best if he stays inside, but he braves the dusk anyway, sprinting through the forest in search of a telltale flash of gold. The air is charged, crackling sharper the darker it gets, and it pulls at him, running up his skin and down his spine.

Bucky’s heart is racing by the time he has searched all of his and the wolf’s usual spots. It’s not because of the exertion.

He doesn’t give up, keeps looking until the sun is gone and the moon glows almost bright enough to compensate. By the time he’s willing to call it quits, he’s angry and tense and physically incapable of keeping his hands off his weapons.

There’s no sign of Ste – the wolf. None except the howls that seem to chase Bucky back to his cabin.

He collapses in bed and stares up at the ceiling. He doesn’t sleep. The howling doesn’t stop.

 

* * *

 

He passes out some time near dawn. He can remember the first hint of light past the window, but when he blinks, it’s clear that it’s well past noon and there’s an ache in his back from where his knife sheath dug into the muscle all night long.

There are no whines beyond his door, none of the sounds that say something large and hulking is trying to be quiet. Steve never let him sleep in this long anyway, distressingly similar to his namesake in all the wrong ways.

Fuck.

Bucky turns his head, trying to summon the will to pry himself out of bed, and finds the bedroom door wide open. He can see the front door from here, and that’s open too. He doesn’t recall closing either last night which isn’t saying much since he barely remembers anything about the run back to the cabin except the soul-splitting howls. What matters is that there’s no glimpse of gold and blue inside or on the porch.

It’s stupid is what it is. He didn’t get attached to Carter or Romanoff even though they both gave him reason to. Carter is the same age as him, ice and all, and for all that she is a hero and Bucky anything but, her desire for a kindred spirit is obvious – obvious only because she lets it be, but that’s fine, better than the alternative. The problem is that Captain America might be a woman out of time, but she is a survivor down to the marrow of her bones; not the kind that lets life sweep her along some inexorable path, but the kind that claws herself to the bank and _lives_. Bucky is grateful to her for all she did, likes her even, but he doesn’t _care_.

Romanoff – Natalia, Natasha now – is harder, their history coming together in his mind in shards of blood and death and, inexplicably, love. It’s bittersweet now, but she was a moment of softness in a lifetime of ice and metal. She was a child when he trained her, and if Bucky was not father material, the Winter Soldier was worse, but there was something there anyway, a pale shade of family put together by two broken people. But they took that from him a long time ago and as his memories returned, he was glad she carved her own path, his little spider, but she was a piece of the past he was happy to leave behind.

Come to think of it, he was happy to leave nearly everything behind except Steve.

Figures, doesn’t it?

He should have just gone to seedy bars and picked up reedy blond boys with long fingers like normal dysfunctional people. Instead, he went and bonded with a wild wolf that's about as natural as Bucky.

It’s that rank blend of self-pity and disgust that propels him out of bed in a roll. His foot lands on something thick and soft – there’s a second where he registers it shouldn’t be there, and then a loud yelp pierces his ears and suddenly, he’s on his back on his bed with some hundred pounds of animal pinning him down.

He reaches for a knife, of course he does, but then the familiar blue of those eyes register and he’s blurting “Steve?” before he can help it.

The wolf stills, expression morphing into one that reminds him of all those videos he’s seen of people’s dogs being caught doing something they absolutely shouldn’t be doing.

“You motherfucker,” Bucky breathes and throws his arms around the giant lug that’s crushing him to death.

 

* * *

 

Once the wolf’s got a taste of Bucky’s bed, it’s impossible to get him off it.

Again, it’s reminiscent of the original Steve. He also liked to plop on Bucky and lick his neck but for one thing, human Steve weighed all of a hundred pounds and was in no danger of accidentally suffocating Bucky. For another, neck-licking in those days usually led to more fun stuff while here, it’s just wet and gross and _wakes him up_ and generally just makes Bucky want to strangle someone, mostly himself.

He also knows himself enough to know that he doesn’t mind, not really.

He still keeps the bedroom door locked at nights, only Steve is on his side of it now, usually draped along his back like an overly hot, furry blanket. It’s almost infuriating, how comforting Bucky finds it, but only almost.

“We’re gonna have to set some house rules,” Bucky says a week after Steve’s brief vanishing act.

The damn wolf doesn’t even bother raising its head from the steak – from Bucky’s stash because he’s weak to pleading blue eyes that shade whether they come in human or wolf – he’s devouring.

“Steve,” Bucky says, very patiently and only drawing out the name a little. He’s given up on not using it. Ever since his slip up when Steve emerged from under his damned bed, the wolf has refused to answer to anything _but_ Steve.

Steve gobbles up the last of the meat and raises his head, somehow managing to look adorable even with blood smeared on his snout.

“No random disappearances. I don’t know what Hydra did to you–” Steve growls at the name, like always, and shuffles closer to Bucky, and he’d like the gesture more if he didn’t get the feeling the wolf was trying to comfort Bucky rather than draw comfort. Could just be both, but he’s not sure. “I know, pal, I hate them too, but they’re dead and burning so who’s the winner here? Anyway, I know you’re smart, you ain’t even hiding it, so don’t fucking tell me you can’t give me some warning before you take off to do whatever weird wolf stuff you get up to. You get me?”

Steve shoves his wet nose under Bucky’s palm; it would be cuter if it didn’t get blood on him, but Bucky finds it adorable anyway because he’s a sucker. He knows Steve’s agreeing and some blood is worth it.

“Good. And–” He has to pause because he hasn’t really thought past this. Can’t really think of anything that matters. “Stop hogging the covers.”

Steve snorts, butts his snout against Bucky’s hip, and yeah, that doesn’t need any translation either.


	2. i will never forget the place that i loved you, even if it is raining ash (i hear some of the trees are still alive on the inside)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky’s glad Hydra never managed to utilize whatever they tried with Steve. He sure hopes there aren’t more like him running about. Steve’s a sweetheart – an asshole, but real nice about it – and Bucky loves the fucker, but he’s seen enough of the world to know abilities like this can’t always be trusted.
> 
> Exhibit A: James Buchanan Barnes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from [ Caitlyn Siehl’s “Desperate.”](http://alonesomes.tumblr.com/post/67234083264/we-kissed-because-we-were-starving-for-it-we)
> 
> Thank you, everyone, for the response to the last chapter. It was very encouraging <3

Life with a mutant wolf is surprisingly mundane after a point.

Bucky knows now why he felt like he was being watched all the time and why he could never find the culprit. He was always looking for people, not animals, and even if nothing about Steve was normal, it didn’t matter when Bucky never turned his suspicion on paw prints or gleaming eyes in the dark.

He doesn’t know why Steve was watching him. For all his intelligence, Steve can’t actually talk or write or communicate with Bucky in any way beyond his very expressive face and versatile range of noises. It works for them, but they won’t be having heart-to-hearts any time soon. Bucky has his theories, some of them rooted in that night he can’t remember, but that’s all they are – theories born more from guesswork than any solid evidence. He surprises himself with how little he cares about finding out and doesn’t even try to pretend that the apathy isn’t because of Steve.

They’re doing good, the two of them. Probe too much at a house of cards, it falls apart, and Bucky wants to keep this.

And if thinking of the life he’s built as a house of cards is not exactly healthy, he doesn’t see anyone around who can tell him otherwise and back it up with half-decent logic.

Transience is a part of life. Bucky learned that the hard way when he promised to stay with a boy till the end of the line and never kept it.

 

* * *

 

Steve likes leaving the forest even less than Bucky does. He whines and growls all the way to the edge of the woods and then slinks into the shadows, blending in with more skill than a nearly five foot golden wolf should be capable of. Bucky’s not much happier about the arrangement but he keeps his irritation contained to a frown that dissuades friendly attempts at conversation without marking him out as a possible serial killer.

His beat-up truck is right where he left it, protected nominally by a series of crude, non-lethal traps, but even if it gets stolen, he wouldn’t shed a tear. The closest town is within running distance for him. But he’d still prefer to avoid the hassle of transporting goods without a vehicle or acquiring another.

The whole thing takes about half a day, but Bucky is more exhausted than he is at the end of those long runs with Steve that always end up resembling some kind of adventure sport. People are hard. He used to be charming, but fuck if he can do that shit now. He doesn’t even want to.

Dragging the stuff – mostly food but also toiletries and other essentials – from the truck to his cabin is always a pain in the pass, but this time, Steve bounds out of the trees the moment Bucky comes to a stop and essentially bullies his way into acting as a pack mule. Bucky would typically hesitate, but he has roughhoused with Steve enough to know his strength.

Bucky’s glad Hydra never managed to utilize whatever they tried with Steve. He sure hopes there aren’t more like him running about. Steve’s a sweetheart – an asshole, but real nice about it – and Bucky loves the fucker, but he’s seen enough of the world to know abilities like this can’t always be trusted.

Exhibit A: James Buchanan Barnes.

Between the two of them, one trip is enough and Bucky’s so grateful to be able to just strip down and collapse in bed that he doesn’t even put up his usual token protest when Steve hops in beside him. Unlike Bucky though, Steve has delusions of proper sleep hours so he only stays long enough to shove his wet nose at Bucky’s throat and sniff a few times before he climbs off the bed and leaves the room.

Bucky’s almost managed to doze when a loud clatter wakes him.

He finds exactly what he expects – Steve eyeing the plastic bag spilling its contents all over the floor, one side of his lip curled to show teeth, an expression Bucky has learned to read as acute annoyance.

“Serves you right,” Bucky gripes, not bothering to pick anything up yet. “Curiosity killed the cat, and that thing at least had the excuse of having nine lives.”

Steve levels him with a flat glare and goes about sniffing everything, a habit so typically canine that Bucky’s hit with an odd mix of incredulity and amusement whenever he sees it. Sure, he’s living with a mutant wolf with human-level intelligence that’s likely a Hydra experiment but at least it likes to sniff shit.

A few items rolls towards Bucky before Steve can turn his nose on them. One’s a bottle of oil and Steve pays minimal attention to it before nosing at the tube at Bucky’s feet. He sniffs it, pulls back with a hilariously puzzled expression, then leans in and sniffs again, taking a good deep drag this time instead of the usual swift huffs.

Blue eyes turn on Bucky, pinning him in place.

“It’s not food,” Bucky says, ruthlessly stifling the urge to squirm. He looked Alexander Pierce in the eye and fucking shot him. He’s not gonna cave to a _wolf_.

Steve’s eyes narrow.

Bucky’s gonna fucking cave to a wolf.

“Fuck you, if I want to use apple flavored lube, I’ll damn well use it, and if you want to judge me, you can sleep on the fucking floor, Steve!”

He snatches the tube from the floor and stalks back to the bedroom, unsurprised to hear the click of claws following him.

 

* * *

 

Joking threats aside, his new sleeping arrangements do pose a quandary for Bucky’s sex life – well, masturbation life since that’s all the action he’s getting and all that he’s interested in. Romanoff seemed to take personal offense to that during his brief stint with the Avengers and the ensuing matchmaking attempts only reinforced Bucky’s desire to never be intimate with another person again, ever. At least after the disastrous attempt to get him and Carter on a date, she laid off, though Bucky’s sure that had a lot to do with how Romanoff came out of Carter’s hotel room the next day with marks all over her neck.

Thing is that Bucky’s quite fine with just his hands for company, but sharing a bed with his overenthusiastic furry blanket isn’t conductive to even jerking off. It’s just wrong to do it with Steve on the bed, especially when that’s the name Bucky gasps out, an exception even in those days when he didn’t let himself think about Steve Rogers. But he’d feel bad kicking him out of bed just to get his rocks off. Those damn eyes can spear his soul.

It’s not so bad though. Steve’s prone to fucking off for hours, though he always takes care to let Bucky see him going, even nudging him awake on occasion. He’s got a special demeanor just for it, all soulful eyes and adorable headbutts that melts Bucky’s heart a little. Sometimes, he’s gone for an entire day or night. Bucky doesn’t like those, especially the nights. Steve seems to know it and keeps those scarce. There’s no pattern to any of it, but Bucky has learned that whenever the forest is strange and reverberating with howls, his bed is empty.

Tonight’s one such night, and normally, these nights would make him too agitated to get horny. But Steve’s been like a barnacle this last week as if anticipating this, and Bucky hasn’t had a moment to himself except to shit and piss. He couldn’t even jerk off in the shower because Steve has a tendency to lie by the door when he showers, and he gets all puppy-eyed if Bucky tries to shoo him off or close the door.

Damn but he’s weak when it comes to that animal. At least Steve’s living up to his name.

So Steve’s gone, the air is heavy and loud with wolves howling, and Bucky’s vibrating out of his skin for more reasons than one. The restlessness is there, real and gnawing while the arousal is more of an absent undercurrent than anything. Bucky wears a track in the wood until the wee hours of the morning. The howls haven’t stopped, but they’re less frequent now, less _haunting_ , and he knows from experience that they’ll die out soon. Steve will be here in the morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Bucky’s going to follow him one such night but not yet. Not now. Certainly not tonight.

What decides it for him is that he can’t sleep to save his life. He tries once at around three and ends up staring the moonlit window, watching dark shapes twist on the walls. He throws off the covers with a huff and grabs the lube, popping the cap and shaking his head at the synthetic scent of apples. He wasn’t kidding, he does like it, but he might change it just because Steve-the-Wolf is _not_ what he wants to associate with his lube.

He almost sighs in relief when he gets a hand around himself. His dick’s mostly soft but gets in on the program pretty fast. His libido is mercurial these days; there are times when jerking off feels like a mildly compelling ritual and then there are days when he’s just desperately grinding against the bed and his own fingers. This is one of the latter, and it doesn’t take long before he’s spilling into fist, hot and sticky. He keeps going until the first twinge of oversensitivity; he likes being fucked and stroked through that when it’s another person, likes being made to gasp for breath and _take_ it, but it’s not the same when it’s just his hand. Sometimes, he can imagine that Steve is telling him to do it, whispering in Bucky’s ear in that low, dirty way he had, but that fantasy always has a cost. It’s no coincidence that Bucky does that on days when he can’t stand the sight of himself in the mirror.

But even thinking of Steve is dangerous when he has sex on his mind. Memories come unbidden, flashes from another time, another life, frayed at the edges but bright in all the ways that matter. Bucky can’t remember which floor of that rickety old building they lived in, but he will be dead before he loses the taste of Steve’s lips again.

It doesn’t stay so innocent. Bucky’s cock starts to swell again as he traces his own lips with metal fingers and thinks of how Steve did the same when they were stretched tight around his cock. He feels empty and hollow in more ways than one, his body aching to be held like something precious and fucked like he’d never break.

Steve could do it, make him feel like that again, but Steve’s dead and Bucky’s sick enough to whimper his name into his palm as he slides two slick fingers into himself. The cold metal feels nothing like Steve’s long, artist’s fingers used to, but they still feel so good, stretching Bucky with a burn that borders beautifully on pain. He can take it rougher, likes it that way, except that it doesn’t matter how he pushes himself, it’s not the same as when Steve did.

There are times when he thinks Romanoff was onto something, but there’s no appeal and some measure of terror to the thought of letting someone get so close to him.

The tips of his fingers brush his prostate, and Bucky shakes off those thoughts, rolling his hips down and wrapping his flesh hand around his cock. It’s hard and dripping despite the cooling mess it left mere minutes ago, but the serum has done wonders for his refractory period. He takes it slower this time, fucking himself in teasing little jerks of his fingers and playing with the head of his cock. He keeps his eyes closed, half buried against the pillow, and if he thinks of blue eyes and a bony body pressed against his back, if he bites his lips against a name that still tastes like home, then he’s sure that the dead won’t judge.

 

* * *

 

He has a dream.

Bucky doesn’t like dreaming. The screams are louder there, the blood redder. He doesn’t have them as often as he used to, and when he does, they’re a bleak blend of the worst of his memories and the best his imagination can conjure, and the combination usually has him waking with his throat bleeding while he scrabbles for reality. But he never has good dreams.

And then he does.

He thinks he’s awake, at first, peering through heavy lids at his dimly lit bedroom and wondering what woke him, but then a big, warm hand settles at the nape of his neck and strokes down, and Bucky promptly turns into a puddle of purring supersoldier.

That’s how he knows it’s a dream, partly because no one other than Steve-the-Wolf could get so close without to him every single one of Bucky’s internal alarms blaring. But mostly, it’s just that he knows that hand.

“Steve,” he whispers, arching lightly against the hand on his back. It responds with another stroke, this time from the small of his back to the top of his spine, and Bucky could cry at how real it feels.

He doesn’t open his eyes. Just because it feels nice now doesn’t mean he won’t open his eyes and find some bloodied zombie version of Steve accusing Bucky of killing him. He’s had too many of those dreams, each one as lucid as this, to not expect the possibility. But it’s nice now, and if Bucky’s asshole brain wants to fuck that up for him, it’ll have to fucking work for it.

“Not gonna look at me, Buck?” Steve asks, and Bucky can’t pin his tone.

Of course, his brain knows his weakness and hell if Bucky hasn’t been weak for this boy from when he was seven years old.

He turns, mourning the loss of Steve’s very nice backrubs but loving how his hand just slots into place on Bucky’s hip like it’s meant to be there. Steve’s hand feels bigger than Bucky remembers, but it’s nice and his dreaming brain can be excused for getting the details wrong.

Then he actually catches sight of Steve’s face.

That’s a _lot_ of wrong detail.

“You’re supposed to be smaller,” Bucky says, reaching up with his hand – the flesh one – to poke Steve’s cheekbones. His jaw looks strong enough to sit on, and as pleasant as that sounds, it doesn’t stop it from being _wrong_.

“I – yes. You’re taking this very well.”

Bucky keeps frowning, groping about Steve’s face. It’s so bad that it’s a miracle Bucky recognizes him – then again, dream logic, what can you do. It’s not just the face. Dream Steve has a thick, corded neck and wide shoulders and biceps that make Bucky’s metal arm look puny. He’s built like a fucking tank. Even his hair is different, the same beautiful gold as before but framing his face in long, ragged clumps not all that different from how Bucky’s used to be back when he was fresh out of Hydra’s clutches. He itches with the need to shampoo it into submission like he did with his own. He settles for touching it, tugging at one lock before thumbing the coarse beard covering Steve’s jaw. Steve couldn’t grow a beard to save his life. It did save them money on razors.

And, because not even the weirdness of a Steve that looks more like an artfully rugged American dream than the glorious skinny reality of him can keep Bucky from noticing when a man is naked in his bed, he lets his eyes trail down and down.

The dream suddenly makes more sense because _damn_.

“Is this a sex dream? This is a sex dream.”

Memory and imagination – seems like Bucky’s brain just decided to take Steve and fuse him with one of those big, blond beefcakes that show up a lot in the kind of porn he watches. Though appreciates the effort, he’d have preferred just plain old Steve, but maybe this is better because there’s less of a chance he’ll wake up thinking it’s the 40s again and call out a name that’ll never be answered.

Fuck. Trust him to turn a sex dream maudlin. His brain was being so nice to him too.

Porn Star Steve’s eyes widen and then narrow into an expression that Bucky recognizes as fond exasperation. It used to be a favorite of Steve’s to turn on Bucky – everyone else got the exasperation without the fondness or vice versa.

Then Steve’s big hand trails up Bucky’s side, lingering on the seam where metal meets flesh before sliding into his hair. Then it does a Thing – several Things – that make Bucky’s eyes close and the insides of his head turn to mush.

“Hngh?” he manages to ask, but the hand just keeps doing indecent things to his scalp and fuck sex, Bucky can die like this.

“Go back to sleep, Buck.”

 _But I’m already asleep_ , he thinks, starts to say, but all that slips out is a sweet sigh, and the dream flits away.

 

* * *

 

Two things slam into him when he wakes. One, Steve’s not in bed even though he usually plasters himself to Bucky after nights he spends in the forest. Two, Bucky’s unusually relaxed, mind and body thrumming with contentment. It’s nice but strange and more than a little concerning, at least until he remembers the dream he had and faceplants into his pillow.

“That was fucked up,” he gripes with no real heat and no one to aim it at except himself. It _was_ fucked up, but it was nice too. Bucky does wonder what it says about him that dreaming of a beefed up version of Steve petting him like a cat got him to sleep deeper and better than he’s ever managed on his own. Nothing very healthy, probably. Wilson made noises about talking and therapy during the brief time Bucky spent with that lot before happily exiling himself to this forest. He looked like he knew what he was talking about, but Bucky would much rather saw his tongue off.

Besides, he’s doing fine, isn’t he? He sleeps, he eats, he talks to his demented wolf and occasionally dreams of his dead lover.

He does push himself out of bed when smothering himself with his pillow proves unsuccessful. He’s in his underwear, and the only reason he managed even that is because he didn’t want wake up with Steve’s tail on his balls or something. That animal had no sense of personal space and an uncanny knack for getting Bucky to put up with it.

“Steve?” he calls, stepping out of the bedroom, only to freeze at the smell of coffee.

The room is empty, but there’s a steaming cup placed on the counters in one corner that pass as a kitchen. It’s such an obvious offering that Bucky bristles, doing a sweep for Romanoff’s telltale red hair even as he knows he won’t find anything.

She’s the only one who would break into his place and leave him coffee, because she’s twisted like that and has odd concepts of what constitutes affection. Granted, Bucky’s pretty confused about why she’d have affection for him in the first place when he’s done all he can do discourage anything of the sort. He bets the coffee is exactly how he takes it too. It still doesn’t make sense that she got in without waking him like every other time she has tried. That’s unsettling enough that his arm recalibrates, metal plates shifting with a quiet whirr.

He doesn’t touch the coffee.

The bathroom is empty, not that he really expected to find her there. At least now he can guess why Steve wasn’t with him when he woke. Another presence in the house probably spooked him.

Annoyance flares and Bucky considers grabbing a knife to just to prove a point. She’d evade it easily, but at least Bucky would feel better. He doesn’t, just stalks to the porch, scathing Russian on the tip of his tongue.

And the world drops out from under him.

It’s almost like the dream – Steve, tall and ripped, a familiar stranger. He’s not naked but dressed in a frayed pair of sweatpants that Bucky recognizes as his own. His beard is gone, leaving behind pale skin with a rosy tint. And there’s the realization that he slept through this man raiding his wardrobe and puttering about his home. Bucky woke when he touched him, then let himself be lulled to sleep by what he thought was a dream.

He doesn’t have that luxury now.

“I’m not a dream,” says this strange new Steve, and Bucky can’t help the ugly snort that escapes him.

“No shit. So what the fuck are you?”

Steve winces, and it’s ridiculous how that makes Bucky want to soothe away the hurt. But this isn’t his Steve, either of them. One’s a hundred pounds lighter than this guy, not to mention dead, and the other’s a–

That thought stutters to a painful halt. Bucky’s heart threatens to beat its way out of his ribcage.

There’s a look in the big blue eyes of this man that he recognizes, and it’s not his human Steve that he’s reminded of but the sweetly pleading expression his wolf uses to bend Bucky to his will.

“The wolf,” Bucky whispers, forcing the words out through numb lips. “You’re the wolf.”

Steve’s eyes lower, and fuck, his lashes are so long and gold, just like–

It hurts.

“That’s not all I am, Bucky,” he says. “You know that.”

“Don’t. He’s dead. It’s been…he’s fucking gone, I know he’s gone, and I don’t know what Hydra did to you, I don’t know why you found me, but don’t think for a goddamned minute that you can use that face against me.”

Pain twists the alien lines of Steve’s face, and Bucky _hates_ that he can recognize it, that he knows Steve’s not hurting for himself but for something else, someone else, and that can only be Bucky.

He got real familiar with that expression once he got drafted. It was there a lot, along with impotent fury that Steve couldn’t be there in hell with him. Bucky was equal parts relieved and terrified back then, but funny thing, he should just have been terrified because the war ate Bucky whole and being out of it didn’t do shit to save Steve.

“Hydra never had me,” says the wolf who’s not a wolf. “I know you think that, I – I let you think that, yeah, but they never – I’m not an experiment.”

He sounds like Steve too, right down to the nervous timbre of his cut-off sentences. Bucky didn’t even know he remembered that; Steve didn’t let himself be nervous unless it was with a really pretty dame or sometimes with Bucky, and there was a connection there, clear as day.

“He’s dead,” Bucky says again because he’s a broken record now, and it’s either this or screaming.

Steve’s jaw tightens, and another spike of familiarity spears through Bucky. If this were Steve, he’d prepare himself to be hit with the full force of his stubborn fire, and he’s not as surprised as he wants to be when that’s exactly what happens.

“Yeah? Did they ever find a body?” Bucky flinches, and Steve answers with a grimace, but he doesn’t stop. “I went missing, what, three days after you shipped out? They buried an empty casket, and you know it. I saw you talk to Becca.”

Bucky’s on Steve before he knows it, metal hand wrapped around that strong throat. Steve’s breath hitches at the threatening grip, but he doesn’t move even an inch, and his eyes don’t leave Bucky’s. His stillness is not a weakness, not him rolling over to show his belly. Bucky knows it, can feel it in the way the hair at his nape stands on end.

Whatever he is, this man is dangerous.

“How long have you been following me?”

“Over a year,” Steve answers easily, voice free of guilt. “Ever since that night.”

“What night?”

Steve huffs, and then his hand is on Bucky, warm skin on cold metal. The touch is so shocking that Bucky doesn’t resist when Steve guides it away from his throat. He doesn’t let go even after, only trails his hand up so that his fingers curl lightly over Bucky’s wrist.

The last time someone touched him without violence was…was Steve, in what he thought was a dream, and before that, it was Carter, clasping his shoulder with a smile and then never doing it again when Bucky shook off the touch.

He’s trembling.

“You know which night,” Steve says very gently.

Bucky shakes his head, and it’s not even denial anymore, just a desperate attempt to make sense of a world that refuses anything of the sort.

“I don’t remember.”

“I know.”

And Steve sounds so sad, so _guilty_ , that Bucky has to laugh. He keeps laughing and doesn’t stop, and then there’s another hand on him, big and warm, and he’s on his knees, and Steve’s kneeling in front of him, eyes like saucers and pale with worry.

“What are you?” Bucky means yell, but it comes out a whisper, hoarse with what he’s scared to call hope.

“A werewolf,” Steve says, one corner of his mouth twisting up into something that’s not a smile at all. “I know, it’s ridiculous. At least it was before the sky opened up and alien whales came through. Not to mention Norse gods who’re apparently also aliens.”

Steve’s babbling, and Bucky wants to make him stop, to shy away from the smile tugging at his mouth or the warmth spreading under his ribs, but Steve’s holding him so firm and gentle, like Bucky’s precious, like Steve’s afraid of letting go, and it’s so hard not to lean in.

“I don’t understand,” Bucky mumbles, and he’s not speaking to just Steve.

“I’ll explain, I swear, Buck. I’ll explain everything. I’m _sorry_.”

Bucky shakes his head again, but then Steve’s tugging him closer, his tree trunk arms coming around Bucky in a tight hug. And it should be stifling and strange, but Bucky’s reminded of being pinned under his wolf’s furry bulk and feeling oddly protected.

“I thought you were dead,” he says, the words almost lost against the skin of Steve’s neck, but of course, he hears it anyway.

“I can say the same about you, pal,” Steve answers, and then he’s nuzzling the top of Bucky’s head and holding him impossibly tighter, and Bucky knows he should fight, but doesn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	3. do not think, remember (my mouth, your mouth, crushing grapes between our teeth and drinking the wine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It was worth it,” Bucky whispers, low and vehement. He doesn’t look away from Steve’s eyes even when they threaten to swallow him whole. “Every bit, Steve. I hate over half of what I remember, and the rest is you, and I would rather die than lose a single moment of any of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Caitlyn Siehl's "Remember."

Bucky ends up drinking the coffee in the end. It’s reheated and a little stale, but when Steve offered it to him with that damnably hopeful smile, Bucky’s hand moved to take it without any real input from his brain. If it's a ploy to poison him, it would work well, though even Bucky has difficulty finding any logic in going about it this way

Right now, he’s glad for the mug in his hands. It gives him something to do, a tiny shield, while Steve prepares to tell his story, blue eyes unwavering on Bucky without seeing him at all. He wonders if Steve’s seeing who he used to be, that cocky, smirking soldier boy who never came home.

“Where do I start?” Steve asked earlier, and Bucky wanted to shrug with forced nonchalance, but there was a note of helplessness in his voice that pulled a response from him.

 _The beginning_ , he considered saying, but what came out was, “That night.”

It’s been fifteen minutes. Steve hasn’t said a word. Bucky wants to prompt him, a greater part wants to ask him if he’s okay, but his tongue is frozen in his mouth.

Steve shakes himself to the present, the movement reminding Bucky of his wolf, and he’s sharply reminded that this situation strains credulity in a way that even he, the cryogenically frozen brainwashed supersoldier, can’t swallow. But it’s _Steve_.

“You have to know,” Steve finally says, voice terribly soft. “I didn’t know you were alive. I looked for you after – well, after. You were listed as MIA, presumed dead. I never–”

“No one knew. That was the point,” Bucky cuts in, terribly uncomfortable with the topic at hand and desperate to erase that look from Steve’s face. He succeeds, but the expression that follows it is worse. “Steve–”

Steve shakes his head, mouth twisting into a smile that looks more painful than anything.

“Yes. I know. Sorry. What I’m saying is – I thought you were dead. And then they sent you after me.”

“Hydra,” Bucky murmurs, though he doesn’t really need the clarification. Steve nods, and his eyes glint with something that makes Bucky sit a little straighter and fight not to reach for one of the knives under the couch cushions. It’s not easy to forget that this Steve is a stranger in spite of what they used to be. And Bucky must be no different to Steve.

The thought aches, tasting of loss.

“What did Hydra want with you?” he prompts when Steve shows no sign of continuing on his own.

“To kill me,” Steve says with a wry smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “They’ve been trying a while. I kept killing whoever they sent for me. Then you came, and it almost worked.”

“Right.” Bucky’s own attempt at a smile winds up a grimace. “Because I’m the Winter Soldier.”

“No. Because you’re Bucky Barnes, and you looked right at me and didn’t even know me.”

Bucky can’t help the flinch or the guilt twisting his insides even though he knows he couldn’t have helped it. He didn’t even know himself for so long.

But he remembers too, that he forgot his name long before he forgot Steve’s. It feels that like that should have mattered, even when a voice that sounds eerily like Wilson mutters in his ear that that’s not how it works.

Steve sees the flinch, and _he_ looks guilty for some fucking reason. When he reaches over to take Bucky’s hand, he doesn’t pull away or try to put space between them on the couch. Steve’s just a good scoot away, and that’s as unsettling as it is comforting. Bucky’s not used to wanting people all up in his space.

“We did fight some,” Steve says, thumb rubbing distracting circles on Bucky’s palm. “You were masked. Then it came off. And it was night, so I thought – thought maybe that’s why you didn’t recognize me. That, and the way I changed. I look nothing like the Steve Rogers you knew. So I called your name, and you – you said, ‘Who the hell is Bucky?’”

Steve stops, teeth clamping down hard on his lower lip. His hand is gentle over Bucky’s, but he can see the tendons straining with the effort it takes not to squeeze until bones break. It’s not an impulse born of violence, Bucky knows all too well.

“I don’t remember,” Bucky says. It’s redundant, but he wants to wipe off that terrible sorrow from Steve’s face, and it’s all he can think of. He gets a jerky nod in response.

“I know, Buck–”

“But I remember you. Now. I remember now. Except for that night, I’ve got most things. And you – you’re the clearest.”

The slow smile that lights up Steve’s face is more precious than any sunrise. His hand tightens on Bucky’s, on that delicate line between secure and hurting, but Bucky grips back just as hard.

He feels that touch down to his bones.

“You didn’t remember. And I couldn’t hurt you, but I wouldn’t let you kill me either, not before I knew how you were alive and what they did to you. So we fought.”

Steve’s free hand rises, slow and careful, like Bucky’s a particularly skittish animal, maybe – and here’s a hell of thought – a wild wolf. Bucky doesn’t know if he wants to shy away from the touch or lean it to it, so he stays stock still. Steve’s hand comes to a pause an inch above his left shoulder, hovering uncertainly over fabric-covered metal.

“Can I?”

The question makes it too damn easy to just nod, a breathy _yes_ following.

Steve’s hand is hot even through the cloth. Heat seems to sink deep into the metal, though Bucky knows that’s at least half wishful thinking. It rests there for a second before slowly, gently sliding to his back, and Bucky arches into that large, warm palm with a pitiful little sound that gets trapped somewhere in his throat. Steve seems to hear it anyway, freezing unnaturally as his eyes flick to Bucky’s.

Bucky swallows and tries to convey without words that Steve can go on, and the message seems to get through. Steve’s palm comes to a stop on the silvery crescent carved onto his skin.

“I didn’t mean to bite you,” Steve says. His breath falls on Bucky’s cheek, and he shivers. He doesn’t know when they got so close, who moved, and such lack of situational awareness should horrify him, but all he wants to do is bury his face in Steve’s huge, inviting shoulder and breathe him in.

“It was instinct,” Steve continues, and Bucky makes himself focus on the words rather than on how warm and close Steve is. The fingers lightly stroking the scar through his shirt doesn’t help. The material simultaneously feels too thin and not thin enough. “You had me pinned, I threw you off, and I just – bit. Didn’t think about it. Then you started screaming. And you – in the middle of that, you opened you eyes, Buck. You looked at me. And you said my name. Then you passed out.”

Steve stops again. Bucky can feel the fine trembling of his frame and can’t keep resisting the urge to put his arms around him, so he does, not wrapping himself around Steve like he wants to, but placing his flesh hand on his neck, as gentle as he can be. Steve closes his eyes, breath leaving him in a great rush, and his own fingers dig deeper into Bucky’s back.

“I wanted to take you away. I was so worried I’d infected you, and that’s – that’s a whole other hell, Buck. Didn’t know how I’d ever look you in the eyes if I did that to you. But Hydra sent more people – or maybe they were there and just waiting to see if you failed. By the time I took them out, you were awake and there was – life, behind your eyes.”

Bucky remembers that – waking in an unfamiliar forest at the break of dawn, surrounded by corpses.

“I thought I’d killed them.” He didn’t stay long enough to check, just stumbled away, though not before he took a knife to his own thigh to dig out the tracker Hydra put in there. Steve was probably watching even then. Bucky was in no real state to notice. “Guess I should have checked.”

“It would have been very obvious that something with a lot of teeth and claws killed them, yes,” Steve says, and there’s an undercurrent of humor in his voice, darker than anything Bucky’s heard from him, including those days when Steve was laid out with yet another bout of pneumonia and wondering if it would stick this time.

Bucky always yelled at him for that shit. He doesn’t want to think about how many years Steve spent as whatever he was without anyone to talk sense into him.

“Why don’t I remember any of this?”

“Because the bite didn’t take,” Steve answers quickly like he had the answer prepared. His palm is covering the entire scar now. Bucky wonders if he’s imagining that it’s throbbing at the touch. It doesn’t hurt. He…likes it. “I followed you to make sure. I knew pretty soon you weren’t infected though. I kept following you anyway, couldn’t have stayed away if I tried, and Buck, I sure as fuck didn’t try. I didn’t understand why because it was pretty obvious you could feel some of the effects. But I read those files – the ones your friends released after Hydra fell. I guess the serum you got nullified the worst of the bite.”

“What do you mean, that it was obvious I felt some effects?”

Steve shuffles a little closer, and they’re almost hugging now, but Bucky can’t even bring himself to care. He only draws back enough to look into Steve’s eyes, drowning a little in all dearly beloved blue.

“Your memory. It came back.”

Bucky’s heart skips a beat.

“That – that was you. You did that for me?”

“I – not on purpose. I didn’t know it would do that. It heals, yes, but only as much as it hurts. It changed me, physically – the asthma, scoliosis all gone as if they never existed.” Steve gives him a strange, lopsided smile that doesn’t sit right on his mouth. “It’s not a blessing, I can tell you that.”

“It did hurt.”

“I know.”

“I spent three weeks screaming my throat bloody each time I closed my eyes.”

“I know, Buck.”

And Steve sounds anguished because he doesn’t get it, but no, Bucky needs him to understand. Stranger with familiar eyes he may be, but it’s Steve. Bucky needs–

He grabs Steve’s face, flesh and metal framing the changed lines of that face he once knew better than his own. But he still reacts the same way when he’s caught off guard by a kiss; a moment of stillness, a gasping breath, and then a groan and chapped lips moving desperately against Bucky’s.

He pulls back sooner than he wants to, trying in vain to calm the heart that’s galloping away in his chest.

“It was worth it,” Bucky whispers, low and vehement. He doesn’t look away from Steve’s eyes even when they threaten to swallow him whole. “Every bit, Steve. I hate over half of what I remember, and the rest is you, and I would rather die than lose a single moment of any of it.”

Steve makes a sound that’s drenched in pain, and he’s kissing Bucky again, the hand on his scar flying up to tangle in his hair, the other gripping a handful of Bucky’s shirt. His own hands are glued to Steve’s face, clawing none too gently at freshly shaved skin. Maybe he’ll leave bruises, and he can look at them and see that Steve’s real, that he’s here.

Steve pins him to the arm of the couch, and Bucky lets it happen, parts his lips for the tongue teasing the seam.

For the first time in fifteen months and eighteen days, Bucky Barnes lets go.

 

* * *

 

They don’t fuck on the couch, but it’s a near thing.

Bucky doesn’t know which one of them came to their senses first, but he imagines it’s a good thing they did. It’s stupid as shit to just pick up where they left off seventy years ago, even if it’s just the physical part when it’s never been _just_ physical, everything that they were all tangled up in each other. But no amount of logic can stop the whine that bubbles up Bucky’s throat or the way he leans in to chase Steve’s mouth.

It helps that Steve’s looks equally devastated about stopping, his face flushed bright and lips swollen red.

“Talk,” Steve gasps out, sounding like he went ten rounds with Iron Man. “We gotta talk.”

It doesn’t come out a question, but Bucky gets the sense that it’s a near thing. He’s probably not helping with the way he’s staring at Steve’s mouth and aimlessly groping his arms. He can feel his need emanating off him, and Steve’s always liked him desperate. Well, he used to. Could be that he’s put off by it now that he’s a golden Adonis and every idiot who never gave him a second glance back in the day would happily line up to take him for a ride. He’s got options, that’s for sure, but he’s here anyway, having stalked Bucky for more than a year. Maybe it’s fucked up that Bucky finds that reassuring, but he’s the fucking definition of fucked up.

Besides, Bucky knows the look in Steve’s eyes, pupils blown and dark with hunger, and it’s true that there’s a tinge to it that Bucky doesn’t recognize, something wild and almost feral, but that does jackshit to cool the heat pooling low in his gut. Steve looks like he’d love to eat Bucky alive, and dammit, Bucky would let him.

There’s a growl, low and rumbling. It sends a jolt all through Bucky, and he finds himself straining to press his body closer to Steve before he even figures out where the sound’s coming from.

“Fuck,” he laughs, the sound dragging up his throat like broken glass. “You sound just like the wolf when you do that.”

“I am the wolf,” Steve says to Bucky’s hair. He doesn’t seem to be any hurry to move away either, his hands running up and down Bucky’s back in a manner similar to what coaxed him to sleep not many hours ago.

“Yeah. You still haven’t explained that part.”

“Not much to say,” Steve says, extremely casual, and yeah, there’s a lot to say there.

“You really gonna stink up this place with so much bullshit, Steve?”

Steve laughs, and there’s nothing remotely pleasant about the sound. It’s unfamiliar to Bucky; the Steve he knew wasn’t the kind to laugh out his anger and misery. He raged like a storm and god, he was beautiful, but Bucky could never shake the reminder that storms only left devastation in their wake.

“It’s funny,” Steve murmurs, his tone making it clear that no, it’s not funny at all. “It’s been so long since someone called me out on my bullshit. I forgot how it felt.”

“Yeah? How’s it feel?”

He doesn’t see the kiss coming, and when Steve’s mouth leaves his forehead, Bucky’s left the strangest feeling that he’s too big for his skin, this cabin, this entire goddamned forest.

“Like I’m finally alive again.”

Bucky closes his eyes in a vain attempt to shield himself against all that sincerity. Words escape him, but Steve doesn’t seem to expect a response. He strokes Bucky’s hair and traces his spine through his shirt, both hands never stilling and never letting go.

“I question that company you kept all these years, Rogers,” Bucky manages in the end.

“I didn’t,” Steve says, and he’s smiling with just his mouth. Bucky’s not surprised for some infernal reason. “It’s not really, uh, safe for me be around humans. And unlike actual wolves, werewolves don’t run in packs. We tend to get territorial around each other, dangerously so.”

“So you just – what, shut yourself away from everyone else?”

Steve raises an eyebrow, presumably at Bucky’s tone, and looks around the cabin meaningfully.

And yeah, that’s fair, but Bucky bristles anyway.

“That’s different and you know it.”

“Do I?” Steve asks mildly. “You’re here for the scenery then?”

Bucky smacks Steve’s chest but makes the mistake of using his flesh hand. It hurts him more than Steve. He’s using his left next time; Steve can take it.

“I’m here because half of the people who know I’m alive want me dead and the rest want me to work for them. Also, I hate people.”

Steve nods like he understands that completely reasonable response and then asks, “What were you saying about bullshit and the stench, Bucky?”

“Fuck you,” Bucky spits, and he considers getting off the couch just to make a point, but that would require leaving Steve and his hands and his warmth, and _nope_. “It’s different because my mind hasn’t been mine for decades, and I don’t trust myself with it now.”

Bucky regrets the words the moment they’re out.

He doesn’t _talk_ about this, not even to Romanoff who, more than anyone, would understand what he’s gone through from both sides of the screen. She was the Red Room’s, once, and Bucky has combed through the Shield files dumped on the internet – he knows what happened to Barton, and that guy means something to Romanoff. Not a lover, but a connection bone-deep. She offered too, pretty face arranged to neutral but welcoming lines, and Bucky stared at her until she turned away with a wry smile.

But an hour with Steve, and Bucky’s spilling his guts like someone slit his belly with a machete.

 _Some things don’t change_ , he thinks a little hysterically, and the scene that swirls to life in his mind is one of a cold winter night, a lifetime ago, when a stupid boy looked into his best friend’s guileless eyes and cried through a confession. The best friend kissed the boy instead of spitting on him. They were stupid kids, thought they had forever.

That was alright though. Nothing lasts forever, and they were happy for as long as they could be. That didn’t change how Bucky never meant to say those words, but Steve managed to get it out of him anyway without even asking the right questions.

Now, Steve just looks terribly sad. His hands are gentle when they cup Bucky’s face, his lips sweet for the second their mouths connect.

“I was bitten in the city,” Steve says when he draws back, not far, but enough that he’s not breathing the words into Bucky’s skin. “There are so many stories about werewolves, especially now. I’ve read a lot, even watched a few movies. In most of them, the bitten change at the next full moon. There’s plenty of convenient signs about what’s happening. And I know it’s just fiction, but each time I read one of those, all I can think is that I was facedown in an alley bleeding out of a hole in my throat while my bones broke and rearranged themselves.”

“Steve…”

Steve shakes his head before Bucky can say anything else.

“It was a long time ago. Thing is, it happened right then. It always does when you’re bitten on the full moon. One evening, I was a dying human, and a few hours later, I was howling at the moon. I wasn’t even me anymore, just the wolf. It’s not like what happened with you, but all I’m saying is that I know what it feels like to be a passenger in your own head, screaming while your body commits atrocities.”

“How long?” Bucky asks, feeling oddly numb.

“Years.” Steve shrugs, carefully casual. “Whoever bit me didn’t come back for me. I didn’t know how to turn back. I ran as a wolf for maybe a decade before I met another. She helped me. Kicked my ass first, but I had my mind back afterwards.”

Bucky doesn’t want to imagine it, but he does anyway. His head is full images of Steve in pain, but this is different. He was alone and hurting. He thought he was dying, and Bucky wasn’t there to save him. And then he was lost _so long_ , and Bucky was off in another continent, not much better off. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

“I know that look,” Steve says softly, his hand rising to trace the dark circles under Bucky’s eyes. “Don’t. This isn’t on you, Buck. We always knew you couldn’t look after me forever. It’s not what I wanted for you either.”

“I did. I wanted it.”

There’s surprise on Steve’s face, and Bucky wants to call him a stupid sack of shit because how could that _possibly_ be news? He’d have followed this man to hell and back, and it was just fate’s idea of a joke that they ended up in their own personal hells without each other for comfort.

“Bucky, I–” Bucky waits, eyeing the furrow between Steve’s brows, but only silence answers him. There’s a hint of red on his cheeks, and his eyes are suspiciously bright, so Bucky takes pity on him and kisses him. It’s the right decision; everything Steve didn’t know how to say, he knows to show with his lips and teeth and tongue. It’s a language Bucky is still familiar with, against all odds, and he hopes with jealous vehemence that there’s no else in the world who can taste the words in Steve Rogers’ mouth the way he can.

“We’re here now, both of us,” Steve says when they part. He’s still flushed, but the curve of his mouth is happy. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Bucky huffs, more amused than he wants to let on, but Steve sees it anyway. Bucky’s aware that with some effort, he can hide the heart currently beating on his sleeve, but he just doesn’t want to.

“You going romantic on me, pal?”

“God forbid.”

They kiss, chaste and lingering. Bucky wants to melt into this man.

But the elation doesn’t last as everything he just heard sinks in. Bucky can’t help but try and connect the dots, even though he’d give nearly anything to just turn off his mind and enjoy being here with Steve.

“It wasn’t a full moon when I came for you,” he says in the end, meeting Steve’s gaze not without difficulty. He braces for judgment, but Steve’s eyes only soften.

“No. The change is much slower then. And Hydra learned its lesson after the first few times. I’m strongest on full moons – there wasn’t much left of the teams they sent. I assume they thought it’d be easier to kill me while I was human.”

“They were wrong.”

“Well,” Steve drawls, grinning with a mouth full of teeth, “the thing is that I’m never human. I can look the part as easy as anything, but the wolf is always there.”

Confidence colors Steve’s tone, the kind backed up by a wealth of experience, but something about it rubs Bucky the wrong way. He searches Steve’s face for answers and finds one in the bitter twist of his mouth.

“You’re never just the wolf either,” Bucky says in the end. “I should know.”

“You would,” Steve agrees, but it’s not enough. Bucky doesn’t know the right words to say to make everything better. The best he can offer is the truth.

“It doesn’t matter, you realize? Wolf, human, both – doesn’t matter. You’re you. And you’re here. That’s more than I ever thought I’d have. And you _saved_ me, Steve.”

“You saved yourself, Bucky Barnes, and don’t you forget it. I was an accident, and it’s the happiest one of my life, but I watched you put yourself together, all by yourself.”

There’s nothing Bucky can say to that, and an instinctive denial flies to lips but doesn’t make it past the flutter in his throat. Steve doesn’t seem to expect a response though, and when Bucky ducks to push his face into his neck, Steve holds him close without a word.

 

* * *

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sure, the first few days were awkward. Bucky had no idea how to handle another person in his space, and Steve was no better. They might have existed as almost a singular entity once, but that was decades ago and they were different people.

In the end, it’s Steve who finds a solution, and it works, even if it puzzles the hell out of Bucky. Because honestly, he did miss the big dumb wolf getting all up in his space and even the knowledge that Steve is _actually_ Steve doesn’t impede those few months of familiarity. The confusing part is why Steve seems so okay with it. The situation seems obviously skewed in Bucky’s favor, which is something Steve would do before and probably would now because Steve is Steve and Bucky is Bucky, but the thing is that Steve looks happy as a clam to just lounge on Bucky’s bed and go on long, taxing runs through the woods. And he misses human Steve.

When Bucky finally finds the words to say all this out loud, it’s surprisingly anticlimactic.

Steve shrugs but looks thoughtful. He’s on the couch, sipping coffee Bucky made and dressed in his pants. He’s topless, partly because most of Bucky’s clothes would be obscenely tight on him, but it’s really just that on the rare occasions that he’s in human form, Steve prefers to be as scantily clad as possible. Bucky is not complaining, but damn, it can be distracting at times.

“I don’t really register it as weird,” Steve says after a few minutes. “I’m as wolf as I’m human, and I’ve spent more time as the former since I was turned. It’s easier like this, isn’t it?”

Steve’s looking at him with those big blue eyes all wide and earnest, and Bucky has to take a moment to find his tongue.

“I – it’s fine, whatever you want is fine, but, uh, Steve? You know I like you this way too, right? We can figure it out.”

Steve smiles, sweet and bright, and Bucky’s heart trips over itself.

“Thank you, Buck. I like this too. It’s just gonna take some time getting used to. But there’s no hurry, right? We have time.”

“A bit too much of it,” Bucky gripes, but he’s grinning.

“Great. Now stop hovering and come over here so I can kiss you.”

Bucky doesn’t even bother to rib Steve for the presumption, just strides over a little too hastily and climbs into his lap, loving how he can fit as easily as Steve once did on his. Steve slings an arm around his waist, pulling him close and nuzzling into his neck. The coffee mug is carefully put down, and then they’re kissing, wet and messy and a little desperate.

He shivers when Steve runs his hand up his spine, wishing it would creep under his shirt and touch skin, but wary of the same. Then Steve’s tongue slides into his mouth, and Bucky stops thinking for some time.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, Bucky stops waiting for Steve to turn human before throwing questions at him. He never stopped talking to Steve even in his lupine form, but that was the kind of one-sided chatter he used to throw at him long before he knew him as anything but an exceptionally intelligent mutant animal. Then Steve started shifting randomly so he could quip back at Bucky, and well, it’s hard not to take advantage of that.

The change isn’t painful, though that was the only thing Steve could explain to Bucky. All his other attempts at describing the sensation fell flat. It’s a hell of a thing to watch; a shifting mass of skin and fur, muscle and bone. Bucky aches to reach out and touch, maybe soothe, but he hasn’t asked Steve if that’s okay. There’s a lot of things he wants to ask Steve but hasn’t, and he gets the sense that he’s not the only one with this problem, but that’s alright. They’ll get there.

There’s no blood or gore when it’s over, just a man where there was a wolf.

A very naked man, which is one of the reasons why Bucky enjoys watching so much. He’s shameless about it, letting his eyes run down Steve’s body, roving over planes of hard muscle. It makes his gut twist with hunger, but Bucky swallows it down and drags his eyes back to Steve’s face, refusing to blush at the smirk there.

“Enjoying the view?”

“You sure are. Preening much?”

Steve, the asshole, stretches, and Bucky’s physically incapable of looking away from the thick lines of his thighs and what lies between them. He shifts on the bed so that he’s lying on his front instead of his back and folds his hands under himself so he won’t reach out.

“What was the question again?” Steve asks, amusement coloring his voice. Bucky plants his face in his pillow and tries to gather his scattered brain cells so he can answer.

Fingers card through his hair, supremely detrimental to his plan to form a coherent thought, but he sure as fuck isn’t going to tell Steve to stop. He loses time just lying there with Steve’s halfhearted but orgasmic head massage, and it’s only when that hand slides down to grip Bucky’s neck, half an affectionate gesture, half a playful demand, that he manages a full sentence.

“You don’t play fair, Steven Grant Rogers.”

“Full name,” Steve says, smile in his voice. “Am I in trouble, Mr. Barnes?”

“Fuck you,” Bucky growls, and okay, bad choice of words. Steve’s grin becomes a smirk, and his hand on Bucky’s neck tightens a fraction. Bucky swallows a moan and brings his brain back on track.

“The nights. I asked you about the nights you vanished. The full moons I get, but what about the others?”

Steve’s silent for some time, expression pensive, but he doesn’t seem uncomfortable so Bucky doesn’t scramble to backtrack.

“It’s mostly that I didn’t want you figuring out I only vanished on the full moons. I assumed that after alien armies and flying gods, you wouldn’t have much trouble believing in werewolves. You’re too smart not to connect the dots. Had to do what I could to keep you in the dark.”

Bucky nods. That makes sense, and there’s that same old gleam of honesty in Steve’s words, but he also gets the feeling that he’s got getting the full story. He doesn’t ask, just waits and watches Steve’s face cycle through a series of complicated emotions. After a few minutes, he sighs, grinning ruefully at Bucky.

“I may have used that time to patrol for Hydra agents.”

Bucky’s sitting before he even thinks about moving, gaping at Steve.

“ _What?_ ”

“It’s not as bad as it was before the Triskelion fell,” Steve tells him, all calm and reassuring. It pisses Bucky off a little. “They have greater priorities now. But before that, they showed up a lot. They knew we were both here. Wanted to kill me, as usual, and capture you. I couldn’t let that happen, Buck.”

Bucky almost wants to laugh at the way Steve remains utterly placid when mentioning his own death but spat out Hydra’s plan for Bucky with a venomous scowl. His priorities are fucked, always were, but it’s strange even now for Bucky to find himself at the top of that list. He’s glad for it, obscenely so, and it took all of one day for Steve to claw his way to the center of Bucky’s world, but it feels like seventy years of separation should have changed more than it did. It probably says quite a lot about them that it didn’t, and not all of that will be very flattering.

“So you killed them,” Bucky says, raising an eyebrow at Steve. “And got rid of the bodies. All without me knowing.”

Steve grin is toothy, the look in his eyes hard and satisfied. He looks every bit a predator, and it makes Bucky’s stomach twist in on itself, not unpleasantly.

“I did. To be fair, I had help. The wolves in this forest have quite an appetite for humans now, but I can keep them in check. They know better than to touch you.”

“Normal wolves? Or more like you?”

“Normal. They know something’s unnatural about me but also that I’m stronger than them. They respect that, and they follow me when I ask them to.”

“Sounds like you can talk to them.”

“Kinda? Talking isn’t what I’d call it. But we communicate.”

Bucky tries to picture Steve, in all his golden glory, towering over a pack of wolves. The image comes easily, and Bucky can almost hear the haunting howls that reverberate through the woods on those moonlit nights.

“I hear you howling,” Bucky tells Steve. “Not just you either. I don’t go out those nights, but sometimes, I want to.”

“Don’t. That’s for the best.” Steve looks solemn now, a touch concerned, and Bucky forgoes mentioning that he has been planning on following Steve on a full moon. “Humans aren’t safe those nights, not even you.”

“Don’t know if you noticed, pal, but I ain’t exactly human anymore.”

He waggles the fingers of his metal arm in front of Steve’s face for good measure. He should have expected Steve to just grab them and pull them to his lips, but surprise and awed pleasure freezes Bucky in place while Steve kisses each cold knuckle with gentle reverence.

“You’re a soldier, Bucky Barnes, and you’ve been through the kind of hell no man should endure, but don’t you dare tell me that makes you less than human.”

Bucky closes his eyes and turns his face into his pillow, lost for words as he always is when Steve just _says_ shit like that. He’s so fucking earnest about it, and god, he makes Bucky want to believe him.

Steve lets him hide but doesn’t let go of his left arm, and Bucky doesn’t pull away. He’s hyperaware of Steve’s fingers stroking the joints and Steve’s lips brushing random patches of metal. His heart’s racing in his chest. He wonders if Steve can hear it.

“I’ve been wondering why Hydra’s been so damn silent since I got here,” Bucky says once he’s sure he can talk without a tremble in his voice. “Guess I know now. Meddling asshole, stealing my fun.”

“If I really wanted to be a meddling asshole, I’d have followed you around on your grand American tour with the Avengers,” Steve shoots back without missing a beat. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to. Instead, I stayed here and waited for you to come home like a damn house dog.”

“I’m surprised you had the restraint.”

“Yeah, well.” There’s an undercurrent to Steve’s tone that makes Bucky look at him. He finds Steve frowning at the silver fingers intertwined with his own fleshy ones, an unhappy twist to his mouth. “You deserved to pay them pack for what they did to you. A little vengeance is good for the soul.”

“Now there’s something I never thought I’d hear Steve Rogers say.”

Bucky’s not bitter about it, but there’s a wistful quality to the words that’s echoed in the soft look Steve gives him.

“People change.”

“They do. Not always a bad thing. I loved that little punk from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. He’s gone, I know. But I’m not the boy who was happy to spend a lifetime finishing your battles and kissing your scrapes afterwards. He’s gone too.”

When Steve blinks, a bit of wetness clings to his lashes, clumping them together. Bucky aches to reach out and touch the moisture, but he settles for holding Steve’s hand tighter. It gives him the strength to finish saying what he needs to.

“I don’t think the people we used to be would have been all that good for the people we are now. So maybe this is for the best. If we both survived all these years and ended up here again, I – I guess I’d like to believe it means something. Don’t know if that makes me an idiot, thinking the world makes sense after everything I’ve seen.”

“You’re not,” Steve counters fiercely, eyes flashing. “Of course it means something, Bucky. End of the line, remember?”

“One of the first things I did actually.”

Steve looks taken aback for a second before he smiles back at Bucky, a little sad around the edges.

“I thought I broke that promise,” Steve says, and this time, it’s Bucky who has to blink away the wetness in his eyes.

“Me too, Stevie.”

“But we’re here now.”

He doesn’t know if he’s imagining the thread of desperation in Steve’s voice, the need to be reassured that yes, of course they’re here, this isn’t a dream, they’re not gonna wake up one morning reaching for someone who’s forever out of reach.

Well, maybe Bucky’s just projecting.

“We’re here,” he promises anyway, and this time, he plans to keep it.

Steve pulls him into a kiss, and Bucky goes eagerly, twisting his limbs around Steve’s larger frame until it’s almost suffocating. It doesn’t last as long as he wants, but Bucky’s got no one to blame except himself because he’s the one who breaks the kiss to breathlessly ask the question that picked the worst moment to pop into his head and refuse to leave.

“Why now?”

Steve blinks, confused, and yeah, fair enough. Bucky takes a deep breath and scoots away enough that he can think properly.

“You never told me why you chose to reveal who you are. If you’ve been following me since that night, you had plenty of opportunities. I’ve been living here for what, a year?”

“Eleven months,” Steve corrects absently, and Bucky’s eyebrow soars. Steve grimaces. “I’ve been wondering when you’d ask.”

“I’ve been wanting to. It never seemed to be the right time. At first, I just didn’t want to scare you off.”

“You couldn’t if you tried. But I guess that makes me a hypocrite. Because that’s what I’ve been trying not to do too.”

“Scare me off?” Bucky keeps on talking, not needing Steve’s nod to know he got it right. “With what, idiot? I’ve seen shit more surreal than werewolves and you know it. You gave me my mind back. You’ve been protecting me all this time. And I’ve been in this business too long to be freaked out by a little stalking. If anything, I’m damn impressed you didn’t tip me off.”

“A little,” Steve scoffs, almost offended, but then he smiles. It’s not entirely a happy expression. Bucky’s not sure he likes how more than half of Steve’s smiles are anything but joyful these days. “That wasn’t it. It’s not just that I’m a werewolf. You said it yourself. I’m not the man you used to know. And I didn’t know if this Bucky Barnes had any use for me – didn’t want to find out you didn’t. Seemed safer to hide. I could watch you, make sure you were safe. It’s more than I ever thought I could have. I’d have been happy to do it forever, Buck.”

“Liar. You’d have been fucking miserable,” Bucky corrects, voice embarrassingly thick. “But you’d have done it anyway.”

Steve doesn’t correct him, and Bucky hurts thinking of all those months he lived as a faithful shadow, watching, always watching. All those missed opportunities.

“What would you have done if I’d gone with Carter and her people to Europe?”

She invited him after thanking with discomfiting sincerity for his assistance in clearing out the Hydra bases scattered throughput in North America – as if Bucky wasn’t being wholly selfish, as if each bullet he put in a Hydra operative wasn’t wrath and freedom all rolled into one. They got smart towards the end, and the last few bases were sparsely manned and booby trapped to hell. They all survived. By then, Bucky was well-versed in working with the Avengers in odd little groups.

But when Carter asked him to go to Europe with her and continue the mission, Bucky said no. He didn’t change his mind even when Nick Fury, supposedly dead, came to repeat the request in a more ominously persuasive manner. He still doesn’t feel all that bad for shooting at the guy. He deserved it for that stunt, and besides, it’s not like Bucky wasn’t planning to miss.

He can’t say why he refused, not in so many words, except that maybe he recognized even then, how easy it would be to fall into righteous rage and never return.

“Follow you,” Steve says, and his gentle voice pulls Bucky firmly back to the present. “America’s fine. You always came back. And you needed it, I could tell. But Europe’s another thing. I’ll be damned if I let you go there without me again, Bucky.”

“Still not over that, are you?”

It’s a joke, but it falls flat. Bucky can’t even bring himself to smile. Because yeah, the last time he left Steve in America and fucked off to another continent, they both died. Not literally, as Bucky used to think of Steve, but in the ways that counted. He’s not eager to test that theory again, not when he just got Steve back. He imagines Steve’s even less thrilled – he’s had more time to stew over losing Bucky.

“I’m not going anywhere without you, Steve. Not again.”

“Good,” Steve says quietly, cupping Bucky’s face in one broad palm. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Bucky relaxes a little at that, reassured by the certainty in Steve’s voice. As long as Bucky knew him, he was an immovable object and unstoppable force rolled into one and trapped in a frail body. Now, he’s got the physique to match his will, and if he says he won’t let Bucky go, he damn well won’t let go.

“You haven’t answered my question, you know,” Bucky prompts, this time letting it show in his tone that if Steve’s not ready to answer, he doesn’t have to. He already told Bucky the important things.

“Honestly? I didn’t mean to. The day you found me injured was the last time Hydra tried their shit. It was a small team and not very organized. But one got in a lucky hit. I called in the wolf cavalry and was planning to just rest until the wound healed. And then you came. I – I should have tried to scare you off or even act like a normal wolf, but well. You were so damn sweet, Bucky. It was all I could do not to shift right then and throw myself at you. I was so sure I gave it away that morning when I showed up at your place, and later again, when you called me my name for the first time.”

“Funnily enough, my first thought wasn’t ‘oh this could be my dead best friend from another life.’ I thought you were some mutant, a Hydra experiment maybe. Seemed plausible enough. But you still reminded me of, well, _you_.”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs, a complicated sound. “I could see that. Especially when you talked to me. Wanted so bad to talk back, Buck. The guilt kept eating at me. Never imagined you still lo – cared so much for me. That’s what finally gave me the push. I’m just sorry it took so long.”

“Of course I cared,” Bucky says, voice not breaking but only barely. “And it’s – it’s okay. I don’t know how I’d have reacted to you just showing up out of the blue. Probably would have shot you those first few months. You were just being cautious.”

“I haven’t been cautious a day of my stupid life, and I’m only saying that because I know you’re thinking it. Don’t coddle me, Bucky. I was scared, plain and simple. I wouldn’t have given a fuck if you shot me. It wouldn’t do shit anyway. But I don’t know what I’d have done if you knew me but told me fuck off.”

“I could never do that, Stevie.”

Bucky tries to put all the conviction of a man who adopted a hulking monster wolf because its eyes reminded him of his best friend into those words. It works because Steve nods, a little frantic.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“S’okay. I’m sorry for forgetting you.”

“ _Buck_.”

“It’s a joke.”

“A bad one.”

Bucky shrugs, conceding the point, and smiles at Steve who smiles back, wide and a little smitten.

He’s pliant when Steve tugs him closer and tucks him under his skin. Bucky shoves his nose against Steve’s throat and takes a deep breath. Steve smells like the forest these days, wild and fresh, and it’s a drastic change for a city boy, but Bucky loves how the scent wraps around him in all the right ways.

“I don’t agree with you,” Steve says after a long time, jarring Bucky from the edge of sleep. He barely manages a mangled questioning sound. Steve huffs, amused, and continues. “That the people we used to be wouldn’t be right for who we are now. Maybe me in the 40s wouldn’t have known how to handle who you are now when all he knew was that charming menace of a boy, but he’d have loved you anyway. He’d have figured it out. Because it’s you, Buck. There’s no version of me that wouldn’t know you, whose soul couldn’t hear yours calling. And I don’t know if you’ll agree, but I’d like to think it’s the same with you.”

Bucky can’t argue, doesn’t ever want to, and he can’t stop the silent tears that stream down his face and make a mess of Steve’s neck. He leans in and whispers another, long-neglected promise to the skin of Steve’s throat and hopes its answer enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated <3


	4. i want to know you like the river under my skin (i want our roots to make the earth weep)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fifth time Bucky’s pinned to a wall and kissed stupid, he actually manages to gasp out, “You’re handsy today.”
> 
> Steve just hums and rubs his big dumb face all over Bucky’s neck. The skin there will be raw and red from stubble. Bucky winds his fingers through Steve’s hair and keeps him in place.
> 
> It probably has something to do with the full moon. Steve will probably be gone in the morning, won’t be back until the next. Maybe there are wolf instincts at play, maybe he’ll just miss Bucky. Either way, he’s not complaining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from [ Caitlyn Siehl’s “In The Trees.”](http://alonesomes.tumblr.com/post/67680892483/in-this-world-with-trees-that-have-seen-my-great)
> 
> The end, and it's porn. Some feelings. But mostly porn.

Bucky has never fallen into any strict categories of morning bird or night owl, and after Hydra got hold of him, sleep was something reserved for the cryo chamber. At least the Russians let him have long missions and sleep in actual beds. His newfound personal agency has yet to give him any strong opinions regarding sleep except that he fucking hates dreaming and would gladly forgo sleep if it that’ll help him avoid them. Of course, past experience has proven beyond doubt that even the serum can’t salvage his health if he goes more than a few days without rest so Bucky no longer tries to actively avoid sleeping. Besides, he likes the sensation of it, his mind shutting down organically instead of being drugged and dragged into cold darkness.

All the same, if there’s anything that increases the chance that he can sleep without nightmares, it’s a given that Bucky will adore it. He probably doesn’t need more reasons to adore Steve because he’s already hopelessly attached, but that does little to tame the quiet thrill that goes through him whenever Steve, in all his lupine glory, drapes himself over Bucky at night.

Steve spends almost an equal amount of time in his human body as in his wolf one these days, but when he climbs into Bucky’s bed at night, he’s always cheerfully four-legged. He stays that way until he’s done with his morning hunt. Sometimes, Bucky is tempted to tell Steve that it’s okay for him to sleep with Bucky while human because there’s no small amount of appeal in waking up in Steve’s arms rather than under his furry bulk. But he always chickens out because wolfy Steve is unspeakably comforting when he’s licking Bucky’s tears after a nightmare or plopping on top of him like a very pushy protector.

And he really doesn’t want Steve to think Bucky’s making some weirdly veiled demand for sex. They’re taking things – well, not slow per se given that they made out like teenagers on superserum the very day Steve exposed himself, even before Bucky truly, with all his heart, believed what he was saying. But aside from frequent necking and some heavy petting, they haven’t done anything. Bucky wants more, and he’s caught Steve with that dark, heated look in his eyes enough times to know that the feeling is mutual, but they aren’t in any hurry. The last thing he wants to do is rush Steve. Or himself.

Well, he could just explain _all_ of this and leave no room for misinterpretation, and he will one day, just…not yet. His quota for intimate emotional conversations has run out for the time being, even for Steve.

All of this means that Bucky’s pretty used to going to bed and waking up cuddled up to a very soft, very warm wolf. So when the wee hours of one fine morning finds him jerking aware to the sensation of lips on his neck, he’s entirely justified in throwing a punch.

He goes from half-asleep to wide fucking awake between throwing the punch and feeling it connect so he has a whole second to feel horrified about exactly who he just attacked – but then his fist, the flesh one thankfully, thuds harmless into a large palm that closes loosely around it, accompanied by a chuckle.

“Steve!” Bucky gasps, wriggling against the very human body pressed happily against his back. “You crazy motherfucker, do you want to _die_?”

“Nope,” Steve chirps and he nuzzles – fucking nuzzles – Bucky’s neck, and that’s just corny and unfair and Bucky’s going to tell him all about it once he feels less warm and gooey inside.

Of course Steve just substitutes the nuzzling for pressing little kisses along the slope of Bucky’s metal shoulder. He can’t feel the full effect, just pressure and movement, but the delicate shiver that goes through him leaves him utterly relaxed in Steve’s arms.

“This is new,” Bucky mumbles, sleep creeping up on him. Steve’s impossibly comfortable like this too. Bucky was right; it is heaven to wake up in his arms. He’s very eager to find out if the same is true for falling asleep.

At least he is until Steve’s lower half presses more firmly against him.

“Woah,” Bucky breathes, all thoughts of sleep fleeing. He doesn’t consciously decide to press back, but that’s exactly what he does, and Steve’s sharp intake of breath just makes him do it again, harder this time.

“Buck,” Steve groans, and then his hand’s cupping Bucky’s face and turning his head into a kiss that starts open-mouthed and messy and only gets filthier from there.

Steve doesn’t taste like sleep, so he either freshened up before he decided to accost Bucky in his bed or he never slept in the first place, and either way, it makes Bucky self-conscious about his own morning mouth. But when he tries to pull back, Steve tightens his grip on Bucky’s jaw and redoubles his efforts to eat his fucking face and yeah, fine, argument conceded, Steve wins this one.

When they finally manage to come up for air, they’re panting hard and Bucky’s got a crick in his neck from the awkward position. He’s got half a mind to just turn around and keep kissing him, but then Steve’s rolling his hips and grinding his dick into Bucky’s ass and _fuck_ , he’s perfectly fine as he is.

“Did you have a nice dream or something?” Bucky manages to ask, struggling to hold onto English between Steve’s movements and his own cock perking up in interest.

“No,” Steve rumbles – honest to god _rumbles_ , voice all deep and gravelly, and Bucky didn’t know he had a thing for that but here he fucking is.

“You su – Jesus!”

Steve hums around a mouthful of Bucky’s flesh, teeth closed none too gently around his nape, and Bucky doesn’t know why it makes him want to go limp and easy and let Steve have his way with him. Since the impulse is familiar from both almost a decade’s worth of memory and the last few weeks, he doesn’t even bother questioning it. He whines when Steve lets go and shudders when a wet tongue laves over the sting, more to tease than to soothe. His cock is tenting his boxers, hard and demanding attention, but Bucky doesn’t make a move to touch it.

“You’re beautiful,” Steve murmurs in his ear, all saccharine sincerity, and Bucky wants to shut him up and hear his sweet-talk forever. “Saw you all loose and pretty in the morning, wanted you. Need no dream for that, sweetheart, you are the dream.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Bucky hisses more emphatically, turning his face into the pillow to hide the flush spreading there. Steve makes a soft cooing sound against Bucky’s hair, the asshole, and proceeds to distract Bucky from any coherent thought by running his hand down his side. He stops at Bucky’s hip, thumb swiping gently above the waistband.

“Is this okay?” he asks, serious this time. “May I?”

And Bucky knows that all it would take is the slightest indication that he doesn’t want this to get Steve to stop, to let him go and scoot away, all smiles and no hurt feelings. They can talk about it, set boundaries. Bucky really fucking wants this, but knowing his options, having options in the first place, and finding that they’re good ones – all of that is still new sometimes.

He takes a moment. Steve is still at his back but not tense, just waiting for Bucky’s answer.

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, tilting his head back. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

This time, Bucky snorts and turns his head, bad angle be damned, to pull Steve into a kiss charged with all the enthusiastic consent he can manage.

“Fuck yeah, I’m sure. Don’t be a tease, Rogers.”

“I’ll show you a tease,” Steve mumbles against Bucky’s lips, delightfully predictable, but he’s smiling and wastes no time palming Bucky’s dick through his boxers.

It’s not much, just a hot, firm touch, but it’s been literal decades since Bucky’s been touched down there by anyone other than himself. He arches into the touch with a high, embarrassing moan that peters out into a gasp when Steve _squeezes_. There’s a large wet patch there against Steve’s palm, and he pokes his thumb against it, tracing the head through the fabric, and Bucky has to close his eyes and take deep breaths lest he break his fourteen-year-old self’s record for quickest orgasm ever.

Steve doesn’t help, grinding the heel of his palm against Bucky’s dick and mouthing wetly at his neck. He doesn’t say a word, but Bucky can feel his gaze like a blanket, heavy and hot all over him.

“ _Steve_ , fuck, just–”

“Hm?” hums the bastard, all innocent like. His whole palm is pressed to Bucky’s cock now, not doing anything, just pinning it in place through the cloth. “Anything you want, Bucky?”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Hey, now, my mama was only ever nice to you.”

“Don’t bring her up in bed, Jesus fucking Christ, didn’t we have this conversation seventy years ago?”

Steve laughs, loud and surprised, and finally gives Bucky what he wants. His boxers are pushed down and clever fingers wrap around his cock, Steve’s thumb dipping into the slit and smearing precum around the head. Bucky almost bites through his lip stifling a yelp, but he can’t stop the moan that escapes when Steve gives the whole thing a good, long pump. His hips jerk, fucking Steve’s fist, and there’s a low hiss from behind him.

“Good?” Steve murmurs against his ear, voice hoarse like he’s the one getting wrecked.

“Fucking aces,” Bucky pants, rolling his hips shamelessly. “Faster, Steve, I’m going grey here, what’re you–”

Steve’s grip tightens without warning, bordering on painful, and Bucky freezes with his back still arched, barely daring to breathe.

“There you are,” Steve says, unbearably pleased. “Stay like that, won’t you, sweetheart?”

If it were anyone else, in any other situation, Bucky would argue and raise every circle of hell, but it’s Steve telling him to stay still and take it, and fuck. _Fuck_.

“Bucky,” Steve calls, voice deceptively gentle, and Bucky shivers down to his toes.

“Yes. Yes, Steve, I’ll stay.”

A smile is pressed to his temple before Steve hooks his chin over Bucky’s shoulder and finally starts jacking him properly. His hand’s dry and grip strong, the strokes just the right kind of rough. Bucky’s not going to last long, and Steve has to know it, has to see the drooling cockhead and twitching muscles and _know_ , but he doesn’t say anything, just keeps up those strong, measured strokes until Bucky’s heaving and whimpering with the effort to keep still.

“Close,” he bites out when a swipe of Steve’s thumb along the underside makes his toes curl and gut tighten. “Won’t last, it’s been so long, Stevie, _please_.”

“That’s alright, Bucky.”

And he speeds up, a sudden burst of sensation–

“You can come whenever you want.”

–and Bucky’s coming before the last syllable is even out of Steve’s mouth.

He screws his eyes shut hard enough to hurt, white dots filling up his vision. He can hear Steve talking, low-pitched and sweet, but he can’t hear the words, his only sense reduced to touch, to Steve’s hand wringing every last drop from him.

Steve stops before it gets too much, and Bucky can’t tell whether he’s disappointed or not.

“Gorgeous, Buck.” The words register this time, and husky tone reverberates through his body like an aftershock. “Always looked so good when you come.”

Bucky pries his eyes open and finds Steve looming over him, supporting himself on the hand not drenched in Bucky’s come. The look on his face is dark and hungry, and Bucky wants nothing more than to be spread like a feast and devoured.

Maybe that shows on his face because Steve swears and swoops down for a kiss, biting at Bucky’s bottom lip and sucking it into his mouth until it’s swollen and tingling.

“Gorgeous,” he repeats when he pulls back, and this time, Bucky has recovered enough to blush. He likes it when Steve calls him these things, always has, but while his hunger for praise hasn’t changed, he’s no longer the cocky kid who soaked it up like a spoiled sponge.

“Must have weirdass taste, Steve, if your idea of gorgeous is a man with a metal arm and the scars to go with it.”

Steve flicks him on the forehead and doesn’t smile when Bucky snaps his teeth at the finger.

“Don’t be an idiot. You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.” Steve does smile now, faint and almost wistful, and Bucky doesn’t have the heart to reject him. “Always has been, always will be. Never thought I’d see it again. You arm and scars are part of you. You gotta know that’s how I feel.”

Bucky closes his eyes and leans into the hand cupping his face because sometimes, it’s just easier to speak without seeing Steve’s big blue eyes throwing so many feelings at him.

“Would you believe me if I told you that if it were anyone but you, I wouldn’t care? It’s just that you came into this next century looking like a Greek god, and I feel like a patchwork quilt. Don’t get me wrong, I’d have felt just as bad if you were my ninety-pound asthmatic asshole, but this – well, must feel like one hell of a downgrade to you.” Bucky opens his eyes but doesn’t look at Steve’s face, not prepared for whatever he’s going to see there. “I know I used to be prettier. And you can have anyone you wanted.”

“Bucky,” Steve sighs, one long melancholic breath, and Bucky’s face twists unpleasantly. The afterglow is long dead now, killed brutally by Bucky’s own fucking mouth. “Hey, can you look at me? Please, Buck.”

He does, of course he does. Steve would tell him to jump off a cliff and god help him, Bucky would do it. There’s no pity in Steve’s eyes, and the vice around Bucky’s heart unclenches a beat before he notices the fond exasperation emanating off him. It’s a beloved expression, dearly missed in the hell of war and in these last few months. The Winter Solider would have missed it too, if that poor bastard knew what to miss.

“You’re an idiot,” Steve tells him, unspeakably tender. “And I can fly a helicarrier through the holes in your logic.”

“Hey–”

“Hush,” Steve orders, not unkindly. “You had your turn, now it’s mine. You’re right. You were the most beautiful human being I ever set eyes on back then. And in your own words, I was a ninety-pound asthmatic asshole with more diseases than you can shake a stick at and the self-preservation instincts of a house fly.”

“Okay, that’s just not fair, I never said that.”

“I’m sure you’ve thought it. I know I have. I wasn’t much to look at either.”

“ _Steve_ –”

“James Buchanan Barnes, do not make me gag you.”

In any other circumstance, Bucky would quip something about threats and promises, but there’s an edge of frustration to Steve’s voice and his eyes are all but begging Bucky to listen to him, so Bucky shuts up and does exactly that.

“Everyone said you could do better than me, even those who didn’t have the full story,” Steve says, a corner of his mouth twisting up. “I knew it too. But whenever I scrounged up the guts to tell you that, you called me every foul name you knew and some you made up and then spent twice that time trying to convince me the sun shone outta my ass.”

Bucky snorts in spite of himself, warmed by the memories and the affection in Steve’s voice.

“I remember that.”

“Then you should understand why it’s the same for me. Metal arm, no arm, all the scars in the damn world – none of it makes a dent in your beauty. It’s _you_. And Buck, come on, you have a fucking mirror. You gotta know you’re still the prettiest fella I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Bucky opens his mouth to say something mocking but snaps it close after a second, at a loss for words. It was so painfully obvious that Steve believes every word he’s saying, and damn it all to hell because Bucky wants so badly to believe him.

“Sorry,” he said in the end, apologizing more for implying Steve was so shallow than for Bucky’s remarks about himself.

“Jerk,” Steve says softly. “Talking trash about my best guy.”

“Oh, fuck you. And you’re biased, you punk.”

“’Course I am,” Steve says without missing a beat. “I’m crazy for you. Doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

Bucky rolls his eyes so hard it hurts and yanks Steve down into a kiss just to shut him up.

He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until Steve’s mouth meets his and curves to match the shape. One of Steve’s hand curves around his neck and the other settles gingerly on Bucky’s hip, now covered in dried semen. Bucky laughs into the kiss, and Steve grumbles something incoherent before kissing him deeper, half covering Bucky with his body. Bucky lets his hands explore the muscled planes of Steve’s broad back and sift through the soft strands of his hair, kissing happily back until the little guy poking his hip gets too needy to be ignored.

“Hey, I think little Steve feels neglected,” he tells Steve, grinning widely at his sour expression. “So would I, if you didn’t even get off on me after all the time you spent gushing over how pretty I am.”

“Why are you like this?” is all Steve says, shaking his head for the full effect, but Bucky can see the smile he’s trying to hide.

“You like it, fucker. Now come on, baby, give me the ride of my life.”

Bucky spreads his legs in the most blatant invitation he can manage and is rewarded by Steve’s pupils blowing wide as a positively feral expression slants over his face.

“Lube?” Steve asks, that sexy rumble back in his voice. Bucky silently fishes it out from under his pillow and slaps it on Steve’s waiting hands. He doesn’t even get a raised eyebrow for how he had it at hand, but then again, it’s been living under his pillow long before he even knew Steve was alive. Steve even saw it during his undercover wolf days.

Steve’s face does something hilarious and complicated when he opens it, shooting Bucky a betrayed look.

“Not one word,” Bucky warns, shaking a finger in Steve’s face. “I said this once and I’ll say it again. One bad word about my lube preferences and you’re sleeping on the floor, Steven.”

It’s pretty fun to watch Steve physically swallow the words, but once he’s got his hand wet, the expression changes from ‘bit a sour lemon’ to ‘hey I’m about to get laid,’ and the slow sweep of his eyes over Bucky’s naked figure pulls an interested twitch from his nether regions.

“Get on with it,” Bucky demands, breathless, and Steve answers with a kiss that sends heat shimmering down to Bucky’s toes. He’s still a little dazed when they part and barely feels Steve rolling him to his side. He goes with it, pliant, and bites back a small, embarrassing sound when Steve smears lube between his thighs.

“Not gonna fuck me?” he asks, trying and failing to keep the disappointment out of his voice. Sure, he’s a little apprehensive because it’s been a long damn time since he’s had a dick up his ass, and while the old Steve wasn’t small like his stature might fool people into thinking, Bucky could take him easy, especially after all those years of regular and enthusiastic practice. But the new and werewolfed Steve is fucking _hung_ , and Bucky’s not so sure that he won’t break something trying to tackle that. It’s just that he’s pretty sure it’ll be worth it.

“Not now,” Steve says simply, pressing an unfairly sweet kiss to Bucky’s cheek before he lies down behind him. “Soon. This alright?”

Bucky wriggles back, pressing up against Steve to show just how alright this is. It gets him a smile and Steve’s cock sliding slowly between his thighs. He doesn’t waste any time moving, a hand that’s slick with questionable substances clamping down on Bucky’s thigh. Bucky squeezes his legs together obediently, biting his lips hard to stop all the small, needy noises that want to escape. Steve’s breath is hot on the back of his neck, and his cock burns where it fucks between Bucky’s thighs with short, rapid thrusts.

Teeth scrape Bucky’s neck and he does make a noise, a half-eaten gasp that seems to spur Steve on. His thrusts get faster, more erratic, and Bucky’s pleased that Steve is as worked up as he was and bound to last about as long. His own cock thrums with arousal. He could get it up again, or rather, Steve could, probably with just one intent look, but Bucky’s content to just lie there and bask in the quiet satisfaction of letting Steve take his pleasure.

Steve comes with a throaty groan, Bucky’s name and an expletive following. His come drenches the skin of Bucky’s inner thighs, hot enough to brand. It’s messy as fuck, and Bucky only barely resists the urge to rub his legs together in a dickbrained attempt to make Steve’s come seep into his skin.

“Mhng,” Steve mumbles at his back.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, snuggling back into him. “Agreed, pal.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky thinks that’s it because he’s naïve and remarkably good at keeping his near-constant impulse to jump on Steve’s dick at bay. Usually, Steve is too. Bucky has seen him pull back when he starts to get hard with an adorable, _respectful_ smile and waddle to the bathroom to jerk off while Bucky does the same in whatever room Steve abandoned him in. Both of them have enhanced hearing. Neither of them ever mentions that. It works.

Of course, Bucky’s not complaining about graduating from clandestine mutual masturbation sessions to actual sex because _god fuck yes_ , but the rest of the day is…weird.

Not in a bad way. Bucky spends most of it floating from the morning’s memories and Steve’s continued presence. Steve doesn’t return to wolf form and run off to hunt, instead eating the food Bucky makes. He doesn’t do that often because his metabolism is even more insane than Bucky’s and no matter how many times Bucky insists that he can always get more food, Steve doesn’t let go of his stupid fear that he’ll eat Bucky out of his home. But today, he stays and eats and dogs Bucky’s footsteps more faithfully then he ever did in his wolf form.

After the fifth time Bucky’s pinned to a wall and kissed stupid, he actually manages to gasp out, “You’re handsy today.”

Steve just hums and rubs his big dumb face all over Bucky’s neck. The skin there will be raw and red from stubble. Bucky winds his fingers through Steve’s hair and keeps him in place.

It probably has something to do with the full moon. Steve will probably be gone in the morning, won’t be back until the next. Maybe there are wolf instincts at play, maybe he’ll just miss Bucky. Either way, he’s not complaining.

 

* * *

 

Sure enough, Steve’s gone the entire day. Bucky did ask why he vanished for the whole day when the change happened only at night. Steve’s answer was that the wolf was too close to the surface to risk company. There was something in his tone that stopped Bucky from probing further. It’s not that he isn’t curious, but Bucky’s more familiar than most with how certain topics are better left alone lest the body count and property damage pile up. Steve seems pretty controlled all the time. But so is Bucky, and he’s seen the damage he can do when something triggers him.

There are things he hasn’t talked to Steve about, things he may never be able to talk about. And Steve, for all that he’s sunny and sweet, doesn’t exactly give the impression that he lived a charmed life since Bucky went and died on him.

Jesus Christ, look at him. Barely half a day without Steve, and he’s already turned into a sad sack of shit.

The howling starts at night, the sound of it thrumming through Bucky’s blood. He mentioned that to Steve as the full moon drew closer and the answer – that the failed bite probably gave him some sensitivity to the moon and the wolves – was pretty much the answer he expected. It’s not an unpleasant feeling, especially now that he knows why it’s happening. As long as he doesn’t get overwhelmed by the urge to tear off his clothes and go running in the woods, Bucky’s fine with a little restlessness.

He doesn’t sleep. Probably couldn’t if he tried but he doesn’t even try. He listens to the wolves and wonders if they’re as tortured as their howls make it sound. Steve seems pretty happy here. He smiles like the sun, warm and blinding.

Maybe it’s different when the moon if full. Maybe Steve is different, not the puppyish wolf that follows Bucky around or the beautiful man likes to kiss Bucky good night. Something wilder, feral.

Dawn breaks. Steve doesn’t come home.

 

* * *

 

Bucky knows it’s unnecessary at best and downright stupid at worst, but once the last of the night has retreated, he puts on his clothes and heads out to look for Steve. He doesn’t intend to head far, doesn’t even grab any knives. It’s just that the idea of sitting there twiddling his thumbs while he waits for Steve is unbearable no matter how much he reasons to himself that Steve has always come home before.

He’s not even surprised when an hour of searching yields no results. He briefly entertains the idea of going farther, but logic bitch-slaps him and makes him sigh up a storm as he jogs back to the cabin. If nothing else, this little excursion helped kill the lethargy that comes from spending a sleepless night doing absolutely nothing. He’ll make coffee and breakfast. Steve said he’d be hungry. He also said he’d eat before he came back, but a little extra food can’t go amiss.

Bucky’s pretty proud to have a plan to keep himself busy and not out wandering like woods like an idiot. He should have expected it to go tits up.

He gets one foot in the door and a brief flash of unease before he’s snatched up and pinned to the wall by a giant wall of muscle. He has his left arm wrapped around the assailant’s throat before he registers the sunshine blond hair and crazy blue eyes.

Steve’s naked, and since he doesn’t have any pockets to keep a roll of dimes in, he’s just very happy to see Bucky.

“Are you insane?” Bucky yells, hand flying off Steve’s throat. He punches his shoulder, not holding back, and all but snarls when Steve barely seems to register it. “Fucking hell, Steve, I could have killed you!”

“No,” Steve says, and he’s smiling, but it’s the kind of expression that sends reasonable people running for the hills. Bucky’s not all that reasonable, and there’s nothing about Steve that will scare him, but even he has to fight down a shiver. “You can’t. And you won’t.”

“Arrogant bastard.”

Steve hums and rubs his cheek over Bucky’s, stubble scratching his own shaved skin. It’s unfair, how that makes heat spark in his stomach.

“You weren’t here when I came, Bucky.”

It’s not an accusation per se, but there’s a thread of admonishment in it that leaves Bucky simultaneously incredulous and feeling like a chastised child. He swats at Steve’s shoulder again and clutches the muscle when that makes Steve nip warningly at his throat.

“I went out to look for you,” Bucky finally says, face burning for reasons he doesn’t care to examine too closely. “I – I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Steve murmurs into Bucky’s neck, mouth open and wet against his hammering pulse. “Kept thinking of you, ‘bout how I wanna be inside of you. Wanted to come back here, drag you out, and fuck you till you screamed.”

Bucky’s frozen, body hot from arousal and mind blank from the sudden verbal assault. He’s hard, has been stiffening up since he realized it was Steve who pinned him, but it’s almost painful now, aching from the need to make Steve’s words a reality.

But it’s weird because Steve is confident and assertive in bed, and Bucky likes him that way, but this is a whole other level of aggression. His hands are hotly possessive on Bucky, sliding all over him and slipping under clothes. He’s breathing deep at Bucky’s neck in between teasing nips of teeth and kitten licks, trying to smell him in between rubbing his scent all over him.

“What’s gotten into you?” Bucky manages to ask, grabbing Steve by the hair and pulling him back to get a look at his face. It’s almost a mistake; Steve’s flushed red and heavy-lidded, peering at Bucky with dark eyes that want to eat him alive.

“Like I said,” Steve says, all smiles, “I missed you.”

Bucky can’t react beyond a startled whine when Steve grabs his thighs and hoists him up. He wraps his legs around Steve’s waist, moaning a little at the sheer solidity of him and then louder again when Steve presses him harder into the wall and grinds their cocks together. The position doesn’t give Bucky much room to maneuver; Steve’s holding him up easy and pinning him tight and when he catches Bucky in a messy, open kiss, even the last few valiant brain cells that were trying to make sense of the situation just give in.

Bucky just clings, fingers digging into Steve’s shoulders and thighs clenched around his hips, moaning into the kiss when the rocking of their bodies grow harder, almost violent. Steve kisses like he’s trying to crawl into Bucky, all teeth and tongue and bruises sucked into skin. It’s heady, and Bucky’s cock pulses where it’s trapped between two layers of thin fabric, aching to be freed and taken in hand. But Steve just keeps grinding, rolling his hips harder and harder like he can slide inside Bucky through sheer force of will, and his kisses don’t let up for even a second, and it’s an embarrassingly short time before Bucky’s gasping open-mouthed against his lips, trying to tell him to ease off and begging him not to stop and not finding the words for any of it.

A sharp bite, Steve’s teeth sinking mercilessly into Bucky’s swollen lip, and he’s coming between them with a cry that’s half-surprise, shuddering and shaking as he spills in his pants. His head thuds against the wall, a low throb that does nothing to dampen the sharp sparks of pleasure that are running through him. He’s still half-hard when it’s over and burning with sensitivity.

Steve doesn’t let up, keeps eating Bucky’s pained whines and grinding against his writhing body, and Bucky doesn’t know whether to be scared or turned on by how easy it is for Steve to keep him contained.

He yanks on his hair, shivering at Steve’s deep groan, and rips his mouth away to gasp wetly into his own shoulder.

“Easy,” he begs, clawing at Steve’s neck. “Steve, _please_.”

It always works, saying please, and Steve stops. He doesn’t let go of Bucky but stops trying to fuck him through the wall without actually fucking him, and Bucky wants to facepalm at the disappointment mixed in with the relief. He’s probably fucked up, but that ain’t news.

Steve’s nuzzling at Bucky’s face and neck, and it’s almost cute, a little like how he used to behave back before Bucky knew he was anything but a weird wolf, but the cuteness is offset by the rumble in his chest and the little growls that slip past him, sounds that dig claws into Bucky’s gut and _tug_. He’s never going to tell Steve that these new behaviors, the little bits of animal in him that he can’t or won’t hide, are a terrible turn on because the fucker’s gonna be insufferable and also, Bucky’s not really sure if he can articulate that in a way that doesn’t make it sound like he just wants to be spread out and held down and mounted like a bitch in heat.

And he does – he does want. But he can’t let Steve know that. Maybe. Probably.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Steve tells him, grabbing Bucky’s attention by stepping away from the wall with Bucky still barnacled to him. “Gonna make a guy self-conscious.”

Bucky wants to quip back but his breath is doing something complicated in his lungs, courtesy of how Steve’s just walking while holding up all of Bucky – metal arm, metal-coated bone, and a shitton of muscle – like it’s _nothing_.

No, no nothing. Steve’s touch is too possessive, the heat in his eyes too focused. He carries Bucky like there’s nowhere he’d like Bucky to be than where is, caught in Steve’s arms and wrapped around him like a ribbon.

“Thought you were gonna fuck me against the wall,” Bucky says when the two of them collapse on the bed, Steve pinning him again. They used to play at this, back when Bucky could swat Steve aside with an accidental twitch of his arm. Even then, all it took was a stern word and sharp look from Steve to get Bucky to stay still and be good, and he liked that just fine, but he wasn’t unaware that Steve would like it better if he could haul Bucky around like a sack of rice. He knew Steve knew that Bucky would love that too.

And well. That’s one thing off the bucket list.

“Don’t think you’re up for that yet, solider,” Steve says, mouth twisted into a teasing smile. “Can’t break you just yet, can I?”

There’s a moment when Bucky’s frozen by sheer incredulity, and then he’s flipping them, pinning Steve’s wrists and straddling his chest because the fucking _nerve_ of him.

“The _hell_ I ain’t,” Bucky’s spitting, and Steve’s laughing and bucking up and his dick is grinding in hard against Bucky’s ass and _fuck_.

Steve breaks his hold in that moment of inattention but doesn’t go anywhere, just clutches Bucky by the hips and keeps in his place for him to fuck up into. It’s a dirty mimicry of what both of them really wants to be doing, and it shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but Bucky’s helpless not to thrust his ass down onto Steve’s cock and whine deep in his throat at the sensation.

He’s a fucking mess, sweaty and flushed with come drying in his underwear and staining his pants, but Steve’s looking at him like he wants to mess him up even more and damn if that doesn’t go straight to his dick.

Steve gets bored with dry humping abruptly, flinging Bucky off him none too gently. Bucky finds himself face down on the bed and efficiently stripped within a matter of seconds. Steve’s hand cups the swell of his ass, and Bucky arches into it, not even complaining when his boxers end up ripped in Steve’s graceless hurry to get him naked.

And then he’s as bare as the day he was born and being yanked up to his knees, face-down and ass-up like he’s fucking presenting himself. Bucky’s face burns and his cock swells back to life, but he doesn’t move, just stays like that while Steve palms his ass and burns a hole through the skin with the intensity of his stare.

“You gonna look or do something there?”

That earns him a slap, Steve’s palm coming down on one plump cheek. Bucky arches into it with a whine, hands twisting in the sheets. Fingers smooth over the stinging flesh, followed by Steve’s mouth pressing open-mouthed kisses to it. It’s deceptively soothing right until teeth sink into the worst of it.

Bucky cries out, shuddering violently but staying in place as Steve sucks and laps at the heated skin, leaving a mark that’s gonna last a while in spite of the serum’s healing factor. Steve pulls back once he’s satisfied that Bucky won’t be sitting without squirming any time soon, but only to shift his attention to another patch of skin. It’s not as intense without the pain, but it still gets Bucky biting a pillow to smother the high, needy sounds Steve seems intent on pulling out of him.

By the time Steve gets to his hole, the entire skin of Bucky’s ass feels overheated and sensitive. The first tentative touch of tongue gets him arching, head thrown back and mouth open in a soundless cry. Steve flicks his tongue like he’s just having a little taste, lapping down the crack and around the rim, keeping Bucky in place with handfuls of his ass. And then he gets serious, thumbs spreading his hole ever so gentle so that his tongue can lick and lap and slip right _in_ , and Bucky screams, fisting the sheets and tearing them when the metal grabs too hard. Steve doesn’t even seem to notice, intent on melting Bucky’s brain and slurping it out through his ass.

He squirms like a madman, physically incapable of keeping still like he’s never been the most terrifying assassin and sniper to haunt the world’s intelligence agencies’ nightmares. But fuck it, he’s never had to take a shot while Steve went to town on his ass like it was a seven course meal for a starving man.

Maybe it should be gross. Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever done this, and when he spread his legs for Steve, he was expecting slick fingers and _finally_ , his cock, but now he’s drowning in pleasure and humping the air and if Steve stops, Bucky won’t be held responsible for what he might do.

Steve doesn’t stop and shame seems to have fled his dictionary because he just keeps going at it like Bucky’s the best thing he’s ever tasted and he’s gonna die if he has to stop. Bucky’s aware that he’s making wet, desperate noises into the mattress, tendrils of words mixed in with them. He’s trembling, lower half held up only by the sheer fear that Steve will stop if he lets it drop. His cock’s making a mess of the sheets, precum dripping, and Bucky wants to reach down and touch himself, but he’s frozen in place.

There’s no build up, no cresting wave; Steve hums from where he’s eating Bucky out, slips a finger in alongside his tongue, and Bucky’s legs give out as his climax hits him. Steve follows him down, face buried in his ass, and Bucky thinks he says something, maybe a plea for mercy, maybe for more, that’s lost in the roaring in his ears. It goes on forever, his cock pulsing untouched while his ass is held open by Steve’s tongue. Bucky’s a boneless pile of pitiful noises by the time it’s over, and when Steve finally pulls away, he moans shamelessly at the loss.

There’s a kiss brushed to the base of his spine, then higher, and higher until Steve’s trailing close-lipped kisses to the nape of Bucky’s neck. It’s unspeakably soothing while Bucky struggles to come down from an orgasm that seems to have dissolved his bones and higher brain functions. He’s tipped onto his back, Steve’s strong hands arranging him as he wants, and Bucky blinks up at him with blurry eyes, tears clinging to his lashes.

“Ah, sweetheart,” Steve says fondly, wiping gently at Bucky’s eyes. Bucky wants to retort with _something_ , but he can’t think of shit and his tongue doesn’t seem to be in working condition yet.

“You’re pretty when you cry,” Steve adds, his smug smile turning sheepish a second later. Bucky’s vocal chords snap back to life with a high, needy whine that makes Steve’s eyes go dark and animal. “Christ, Buck. Think you can take more, baby?”

Bucky bites his lips as everything in him seems to clench at that notion. He nods, a short, jerky thing, and closes his eyes before the look on Steve’s face makes him blurt out something highly embarrassing. He feels Steve lean over him, big and warm, and misses it when he goes back to settle between Bucky’s legs. He slits an eye open and almost swallows his tongue to see Steve slick his fingers with a dangerously intent expression. Bucky’s not even sure he needs it. He feels loose and open, still tingling from Steve’s mouth, and sure enough, the first finger slips in without any resistance, going deep in one, smooth slide.

Steve makes a pleased little sound that Bucky feels in his gut and adds another finger. This one goes in easy too, but Bucky can feel the stretch this time, though without the usual burn of it.

“More,” he says, pushing his hips down onto Steve’s fingers with great effort. “C’mon, stop teasing.”

“Wasn’t teasing,” Steve rasps, and Bucky zeroes in on his lips, all red and swollen, and the pink flush on his face. He looks beautiful and wrecked, and knowing it’s because of Bucky punches the breath right out of his lungs.

Steve’s eyes snap to his, the blue all gone, and Bucky feels trapped under that stare in the best of ways. Steve doesn’t look away even when he adds another finger and sets about opening Bucky up with clever little tugs. Bucky can’t break away either, even when he starts heaving for breath and biting back groans at each glancing touch on his prostate.

Steve pulls his fingers out all of a sudden, and Bucky yelps, ass clenching around the sudden emptiness. But the disappointment is short-lived because Steve’s slicking up his cock and throwing Bucky’s legs over his shoulders, and he’s pressing in, and Bucky’s so thankful they already had the conversation about protection and their ironclad immune systems. Steve’s hot and wet and so fucking _big_ , and Bucky wants to feel every damn inch of it seared into his flesh.

He gets his wish and then some. Steve always runs hot and he _burns_ inside Bucky, every inch of his thick cock throbbing with heat. It drives the breath out of him, gets him writhing and clawing at the sheets, his hips held in place only by Steve’s strong grip as he works his way inside. It’s an eternity later that he bottoms out, and Bucky’s panting by then, eyes screwed shut like that will ease the intensity of being so thoroughly filled.

“Hey,” Steve whispers, gently stroking Bucky’s brow with a trembling hand. “You alright?”

Bucky shakes his head but clenches around Steve like he’s begging him not to pull away. Steve makes a noise deep in his throat, bowed over Bucky and flushed all over.

“Gimme a minute,” Bucky manages, reaching out with shaky arms and smiling when Steve leans into their embrace. It’s good to be able to hold on to him; grounding. “It’s been a damn long time.”

“I’m torn,” Steve admits, eyes lit up in that way which guarantees whatever comes out of his mouth will make Bucky want to smack him. “On one hand, I don’t want to think of anyone else having you like this.”

That’s hardly an unexpected sentiment. Steve down to a T, really. Bucky has fond memories of sham double dates where one of the girls got a bit too close during dancing. He never discouraged it, partly because it was important to keep up appearances while living with your male best friend and partly because a jealous Steve usually left Bucky begging and whimpering in bed, and that was too good to pass up. Steve knew what he was doing but still got riled up like a dream, and he watched Bucky limp around in the morning with a self-satisfied glint to his eye.

Bucky grins, only to arch up with a gasp when Steve rolls his hips, his cock pressing impossibly deeper into Bucky. He squirms, every minute twitch making him ache with how fucking full Steve’s got him.

“On the other,” Steve says, smirking like the bastard he is, “you’ve always taken dick like a champ, sweetheart, and it’s a pity to hear you were so deprived.”

He punctuates that with a gentle thrust, barely pulling out an inch before pushing back in, but Bucky feels it all the way to his gut. He scores red lines down Steve’s biceps, the metal hand sure to leave bruises, but the fucker doesn’t even flinch, just repeats the motion a shade more roughly.

“ _Motherfucker_ ,” Bucky hisses, teeth bared and fooling no one. Steve sees right through him and lets him know with a merciless roll of his hips that brings tears to Bucky’s eyes.

It’s _good_ , it is, but it has been so fucking long. Bucky’s body can take a lot but the serum hasn’t made him any less sensitive to being stuffed full of cock, and Steve’s big enough that each minute movement sets his insides on fire. He pretends to be cross until Steve really starts moving, and then he just clings, carving up the skin of Steve’s back while he’s bent in half and fucked so sweet.

And it is sweet, Steve’s thrusts slow and sure, gentle even when he’s casually taking Bucky apart. He doesn’t pull out, grinding in with his dick deep inside Bucky, keeping him stuffed full every fucking second. It’s maddening, an avalanche of sensation that sparks up his flesh and leaves him shuddering, shameless as he hangs on to Steve for dear life. His cock’s half hard again, red and covered in his own dried come, twitching each time Steve nails that spot. It’s a perfect first time – and it is a first time, their bodies as changed as their minds, their history comprised of a single lifetime together and many apart – and it’s even better when Steve pushes in as deep as he can go and bends down to kiss Bucky, licking into his mouth while fucking him with short, strong rolls of his hips. Bucky can come just like this, drunk on Steve’s taste and clenching around his cock, but godfuckingdammit, he doesn’t _want_ to.

He twists a hand in Steve’s hair, the right one because he doesn’t have the control not to rip out half of Steve’s scalp if he uses his left, and yanks his head back, shivering at the deep groan that spills past Steve’s lips. His eyes are still that beautiful, hungry dark when they lock on Bucky’s, but the look on his face is gentle, sappy even. It makes Bucky smile in spite of himself and kiss him, short and sweet for a second before he bites down hard.

Steve swears, tearing away, the movement making him jerk inside Bucky, the thick heat of him dragging mercilessly along the walls. Bucky tries to swallow a moan, but it slips out anyway at the sight of Steve with blood on his mouth, staring at Bucky like he wants to take a bite out of his throat.

“That all you got, Rogers?” Bucky taunts, smiling poison-sweet. “Or you falling asleep on me?”

Steve growls, not the playful little thing he lets out sometimes, but a low, rumbling sound that rouses every one of Bucky’s flight or fight instincts. It’s a little ridiculous, how easy it is to grab hold of that and turn it into _fuck_.

He shows off a bit, lifting his hips and taking Steve’s cock deeper, arching his body into a sweaty, flushed display. It earns him an uncontrolled thrust that spears him deep, almost painful for a moment before that dissolves into breathless pleasure.

“I ain’t glass, Steve,” Bucky grits out, keeping his voice steady with not insignificant effort. “You’re not gonna break me.”

He watches Steve watch him, darkened eyes roving over every inch of muscled, battle-scarred flesh. Bucky’s not delicate, can’t afford to be, and it’s cute that Steve’s being so careful, but it’s boring past the initial novelty. He wouldn’t mind if Steve liked it that way, that’d be just fine, but he knows Steve and one thing that hasn’t changed, past and present, is that he likes it rough in bed. Bucky’s not an idiot; he’s got eyes, he knows that look in Steve’s eyes.

He expects an argument anyway, for some noble sentiment to rear its ugly head and cockblock him, but Steve just shakes his head, a rueful smile quirking his mouth.

“Should’ve known better than to go easy on you, Barnes. You’ve always liked it when I tried to break you, didn’t you?”

Steve’s smile is one of his less pleasant ones; genuine down to the bone but not at all nice. It’s not a new expression.

Bucky whines, can’t help it, when Steve pulls out, sudden without a care for how it leaves Bucky stinging and gaping. It’s what he asked for, but it still leaves him reeling.

“Turn around,” Steve says with an open-handed slap to Bucky’s thigh. It makes his cock swell a bit, drooling again like it hasn’t already come twice. “ _Today_ , Buck.”

Bucky turns around, clumsy and biting his lips hard to stop the cry that wants to escape. Steve’s size would make even the gentlest penetration _felt_ , and Bucky’s sure as hell feeling it, throbbing around the emptiness inside him. He sighs when Steve settles between him, one hand smoothing over Bucky’s ass, pinching at the mark he left. He jolts, unwittingly pushing his ass into Steve’s hand. He’s rewarded with the hard press of a cockhead at his rim and large hands spreading his cheeks apart. Steve hums, low and pleased, like he’s enjoying the view, and Bucky promptly hides his face in a pillow. It helps muffle his shout when Steve thrusts in, one deep stroke that splits Bucky right in two.

Steve doesn’t stop, just shows that he took Bucky’s words right to heart with another thrust, almost pulling out before slamming back in. He gives it to Bucky like he wants to tear him open and crawl inside him, make a little home for himself with the blood and the bones, and damn if Bucky doesn’t want to let him.

Someone’s keening, high-pitched and pathetic, and it takes a particularly rough thrust knocking the breath out of his lungs before Bucky realizes it’s coming from him.

Steve kisses his ear, bites his jaw, and murmurs filth into Bucky’s skin, damning him with praise. He never stops moving, his snapping with increasing violence, his cock burning a claim into every inch inside Bucky. Steve can have it, all of it, and it’s easy to be lost in that, to hang his head and whine for more and not think of a goddamn thing except the searing fire coiling in his gut.

Steve pulls him out of it, biting viciously at Bucky’s throat when he doesn’t answer a string of words that take too long to resolve into a question.

“ _Steve_ ,” he gasps, less complaint than praise.

“I asked,” Steve says, petulant son of a bitch, “if you think you can take more, or if I’ve wrung you dry already?”

And see, the thing is, yes, Steve’s easy to rile up, all it takes is the right word and a look, but Bucky’s no fucking better.

“What more is there to take?” he asks even as he cranes his neck to give Steve better access, as good an answer as anything. “You’ve already got me split on your cock.”

The thrust that follows is vicious, and the sheets tear in Bucky’s grip. Steve waits for him to stop keening before he talks again.

“Yeah, you can take more,” he says, darkly satisfied, and that doesn’t make a lick of sense, but Bucky’s too gone for words.

And then Steve speeds up and his arms give out from under him.

Bucky’s aware of the bed creaking alarmingly under him, not made to withstand a supersoldier and a werewolf going at it with no holds barred. He really hopes it won’t break because if he’s forced to stop now, he might actually cry, for about three seconds before he throws Steve on the floor to finish what they started.

Steve, for his part, seems to give no shits about the bed except to fuck Bucky into the mattress, one big palm pinning him by the neck while the other keeps his hips in place for him to fuck into. It’s savage and relentless, the thrusts deep and hard and gaining speed with each stroke. Bucky writhes against it, muffling whimpers into the sheets as he tries and fails to get a grip on himself. Steve seems to like him like this, boneless and helpless, able to little to more than moan and take it. He sure says as much, voice dripping sin as he tells Bucky how good he’s being, how pretty he looks, how fucking _well_ he takes cock – and Bucky’s lost in it, gasping and shaking, face wet with fresh tears, and he doesn’t notice anything strange until Steve starts to slow down.

Later, he’ll say that it’s justified that he didn’t know what the fuck was going on because he was too busy getting drilled with inhuman strength and speed, and Steve will laugh, a little shy and a lot devious, and offer to do another demonstration. Bucky will accept and once again fail at doing much more than pawing at the sheets and begging for more, and it’ll all be very fucking worth it.

But now, _now_ Steve’s slowing down, still going at it like a demon but less like he’s trying to rip Bucky apart, and Bucky wants to ask why but he can’t catch his breath or find any English in the jumbled mess of his head – and then he feels it.

Something’s catching on his rim, a little bigger than Steve’s cock and burning just as hot. And it’s growing, coaxing him a little wider with each slowing thrust. Bucky’s frozen, shuddering each time it tugs at his hole, and then Steve almost still, pressing the growing _bulge_ of his cock against Bucky’s rim with his dick already buried in him, and Bucky finally finds his voice.

“Steve?” He barely recognizes himself, so weak and hoarse. “Steve, what is that? Jesus Christ, _Steve!_ ”

“Ssh,” Steve soothes, stroking his hand down Bucky’s spine. It works too well even with whatever the fuck’s going on with Steve’s dick opening him wider and _wider_ –

“Steve, Steve, fuck, I’m – _god oh my god_ –”

“Relax,” Steve growls, panting the word right into Bucky’s ear. “Baby, you can take it, just relax.”

A hand wraps around his dick, and that’s the last thing to make him relax. Bucky clenches hard and screams when his nerves light up like they’re on fire, spasming around the growing base of Steve’s dick.

And he knows what it is, now that his brain’s back online, and no amount of dick-pumping can distract him from Steve’s fucking knot pressed up against his ass.

Steve’s still jacking him, rough and fast like an orgasm will solve the issue of him being locked inside Bucky, and it almost works. It’s his third one, and it wrings him dry, leaves him crying and trembling and limp enough to slide right off Steve’s dick except that it’s plugging him up, impossibly wide at the base and stretching him obscenely open. It’s stopped growing, and in good time because any more, and Bucky might actually break something vital. At some point, Steve must have come because there’s liquid heat inside of Bucky, drenching his walls, but he didn’t even notice, caught up in his own climax and the growing knot.

It makes him sad. He wanted to feel Steve come in him.

Steve is silent on top of him, his breaths even in a carefully manufactured way. He wants to move, Bucky can tell, and he’s all but shaking with it. How the fuck he’s gonna move with his dick knotting Bucky is a mystery, and Bucky’s probably fucked in the head for wanting to find out.

“This why you didn’ fuck me before?” Bucky asks, slurring only a little. He’s slumped in bed, held up only by Steve’s hand on his hips and Steve’s knot in his ass. It makes his blood burn in ways he’s not too keen on examining.

To his credit, Steve doesn’t bullshit.

“Yeah, Buck. This is why I didn’t fuck you before.”

Bucky huffs and risks moving, though he gets as far as wriggling his hips before his muscles squeeze violently around Steve’s knot, sending a fresh cascade of white-hot pleasure through him. It’s too much, and Bucky’s panting for breath afterward, wanting to move but muscles locked in place.

He doesn’t even hear Steve cursing up a storm until he catches the tail-end of it.

“Bucky, I need to – I need to move. Can I?”

Bucky flops a hand in his direction, all the agreement he’s capable of giving, but of course that’s not enough for Steve. A hand fists in his hair, pulling a deep groan out of him as his head is tugged back. His mouth pops open and maybe the temptation is too much for Steve because the fingers are gone from his hair and tracing his lips before Bucky can so much as breathe. He laps at the fingers and sucks when they push inside his mouth, closing his eyes and hollowing his cheeks. Steve groans, and he sounds ruined already, and Bucky flicks his tongue along the pads of his fingers just to hear him moan.

“ _Bucky_.”

It’s a question, but Bucky’s forgotten, caught up in the fullness in his ass and mouth and trembling between the two. He sucks harder, whines around Steve’s fingers, and asks without words for more.

“Fuckin – _god_ , Buck.”

Steve gives it to him with short, strange jerks of his hips that grind his knot into Bucky’s ass. It’s sweet and dirty; Steve can’t pull out, can’t get deeper, but fuck, he tries, his knot tugging at Bucky’s rim and pushing against his muscles. It gets him gasping around Steve’s fingers, only for a third to slip right in, sliding filthily along his tongue.

He must be a hell of a sight, arched like bow and stuffed full of Steve, but he can’t think of it too long or his brain’s gonna shut down. Steve just keeps on fingerfucking his mouth and grinding into his ass. He comes again, and Bucky feels it this time, a hot gush of come filling him up while he whines and writhes for it. The knot doesn’t go down, just feels bigger.

The fingers slide out his mouth, and Bucky lets his head hang back down. He ends up flat on the mattress, Steve’s weight pressing him down with a gentleness that says he’s holding back his weight even now. It’s nice to be pinned like that, even when Steve sniffs his neck and gives a tentative lick that makes Bucky shudder all over and tighten over the knot nestled into him. Steve groans and rolls over, and it doesn’t matter that he’s careful about it, the knot still tugs and shifts and leaves Bucky moaning on the knife-edge between pain and pleasure.

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve whispers, running his hands soothingly up Bucky’s sides. They end up spooning, Steve behind Bucky, locked deep in him.

“How long will it last?” Bucky asks, wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and give into the lure of unconsciousness.

“A while. You can rest.”

“Aren’t you gracious. You coulda warned me, you dick.”

“I would have,” Steve says, very slowly, sounding across between guilty and amused, “if I were planning on knotting you.”

It’s a little ridiculous how that gets Bucky hot. It’s not like he didn’t already connect to the dots between freaky werewolf biology and the thing currently turning his spine into live electric wire with each twitch, but hearing Steve say the words is unfairly sexy.

That doesn’t mean he’s gonna let Steve get away with it so easy.

“That’s real smart, Stevie. S’not like I’d notice that your dick grew a grapefruit on it. Fuckin’ subtle.”

Steve snorts, a sound that has no right to be adorable but is, and cuddles Bucky closer like a favored chew toy.

“I was going to tell you before it got that far.” Steve sounds far too calm for this conversation. A little mournfully, he adds, “I used to have self-control.”

Bucky laughs and of course, that makes him shift on the knot, and then he’s gasping for air and gripping Steve’s arm hard enough to bruise.

“You alright?” Steve asks, abruptly all concern, and Bucky nods, chuckling a little.

“Yeah. It’s just –I already came three times, or I’d be hard again now.”

His dick is still making a valiant attempt. He has never tested the limits of this particular aspect of the serum, but he can tell that in maybe another fifteen minutes, he can go again.

He can hear Steve’s smugness without him saying one damn word. One broad palm strokes down his front, stopping just short of his treasure trail. Inside, he can feel how Steve’s still hard, knot and all.

“Yeah? Wanna try anyway?”

Bucky groans because he didn’t survive all of Hydra’s shit to finally die of werewolf dick.

But damn, what a way to go.

Steve chuckles like he can read Bucky’s mind and traces a finger around his navel, maddeningly light and teasing. Bucky wants to grab his hand and put it on his dick, but that would mean Steve wins. He still can’t help the way he squirms, breath falling fast and shallow when Steve’s knot grinds into him.

“I think that’s a yes,” Steve murmurs, mouth moving wetly against Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky wants to snark back at him, but then Steve’s palming his cock and rolling his hips, and _yes, yes, fuck yes_.

 

 

It’s a very good morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really sure if this is all I have to write of this verse. I have more ideas, involving Peggy and the rest of the Avengers, but idk if they'll ever get written. I hope so. We'll see.
> 
> Let me know if you liked this!

**Author's Note:**

> You can find my [ tumblr here](https://voxofthevoid.tumblr.com).
> 
>  **Edit July 07, 2019:** So, this is a series now. Just a vaguely plotty, mostly porny sequel.


End file.
